


Rolling Wheat, So it Rolls

by saltyfeathers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Homophobia, Kid Fic, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Shameless Dean smooshing not even joking, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:39:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out in the rural landscape of Lawrence, Kansas, the Winchester family lives quietly among the blue skies and dusty county backroads that serve as a backdrop to their pleasant, domestic lives.<br/></p>
<p>Dean is four years old and in his first year of school when a new family moves to town- right down the road, actually- and he finds a best friend in the youngest of the Novaks, Castiel. They're inseparable, glued together at the hip, and life couldn't be better. Castiel is quiet and stoic, and Dean is loud and boisterous. They slot into each other's lives, seamless and content.<br/></p>
<p>Then, like all things worthwhile; they grow.<br/></p>
<p>While not always in the same direction, neither one of them seem willing to let go of the friendship they once shared. In different ways, they cope with the growing distance between them, and learn about building homes when it seems that all they've ever done is continually burn them down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nostalgia demands to be felt. It is a tug, from the bottom of the heart, a calling of the soul. An inevitable pull of the gut that calls for homemade apple pie and warm nights on the porch with cold beers against denim clad knees. It’s smelling mom’s perfume when she’s going out with her friends and leaving the babysitter- Tracy, a frizzy redhead who means well- in charge, in bed by nine. It’s endless Kansas nights, laying on the dilapidated barn’s roof, blanket of stars winking so far away that it’s almost unreal, to be one boy, in this one town, in this one state, in this one country, in this whole world. It’s lonely, but at the same time, the boy next to you is looking up at the same sky, sharing the same roof. It’s hard to feel small when you’ve got someone so all-encompassing beside you.  
> 
> 
> Nostalgia will lead a boy home every time. He will travel the world, go to space, marry a pretty girl and have pretty children, but the nostalgia has already settled in his bones, a beacon.  
> 
> 
> The only problem with this definition is the notion that sometimes, home isn’t a place. Sometimes, a boy can have more than one home. Sometimes, a boy will build his home, and he will need help. Sometimes, a boy will build his home in someone else.  
> 
> 
> Sometimes, it’s all of the above.

Dean Winchester wakes up like every four year old who’s still excited to be living on an almost farm- that is to say, he wakes before the rooster crows, and has his overalls and straw hat on- “my handsome boy,” his mother cooed when they first bought the outfit- and is running out to the henhouse, red bucket banging against his short legs with every step, all within a three minute window.

The sun is barely peeking over the horizon, pale shafts of meek light a mere echo of the startling oranges that are to come later. There are still stars in the sky, and the hush of early morning is absolute, broken only by the pitter-patter of a pair of boots squelching in cool mud, and the squeaking of a bucket’s handle. He passes rusted red tractors and shacks in the yard that have weathered stronger storms than the hurricane that brought Dorothy to Oz.

Dean slows down once he reaches the door of the henhouse, mindful that the hens will still be sleeping. He’s a big boy now, his mom says so, and soon he’ll be able to collect the eggs all by himself.

But Dean knows that his mom is upset, since she has to do all the work by herself and has to look after Sammy at the same time. Even though they don’t really live on a farm- a couple dogs and hens don’t count- there’s still enough to do that Mary Winchester has lines on her face that make Dean sad.

So he wants to prove, this morning, that he’s ready to start helping out today.

He follows the well tread path into the red, ramshackle henhouse, eyes wide and wary in wonderment. The hens are nestled in their respective places, heads tucked under wings, clucking softly in their sleep. This is the first time Dean’s been alone in the henhouse, and he takes a moment to revel. This is what it must be like to be an adult, he decides. He’s responsible, just like mom. Just like how mom tells him dad would want him to be.

The smell hits him once he’s inside, much more concentrated than it is outside. He scrunches up his face and plugs his nose with his free hand.

Carefully, on tip toe, he makes his way towards the first chicken, feeling the straw crunching under his boots. He holds his breath, and, like he’s seen mom do, gently works his hand under the sleeping chicken. He searches around for a minute, then smiles big and wide once his hand encircles a smooth egg.

Too eagerly, he pulls his hand out from under the chicken, forcing it awake with a disgruntled cluck. It squawks incredibly loudly, causing Dean to drop both his bucket and the egg to cover his ears with his hands.

It’s a domino effect after that, the chickens all waking up in a storm of panic and feathers. Some of them fly off their nests completely, and it soon becomes complete pandemonium in the henhouse. Hands over his head protectively, Dean runs out of the henhouse, feathers raining down behind him.

He runs all the way down the path back to the main house, and doesn’t stop until he runs into Mary in the doorway. The sight of his mother- who was obviously woken up by the commotion- after failing to collect all the eggs immediately causes big, fat tears to leak out of the corners of Dean’s eyes, half spilling onto the dusty dirt of the path and the other half splashing onto the floor of the back hall.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he gasps, as Mary pulls him into the circle of her arms, squeezing him tight. “I just wanted to collect the eggs for you,” he chokes out, hands fisting the fabric of Mary’s hastily thrown on housecoat.

Mom smells like safety and perfume and freshly baked bread, and Dean cries into her shoulder, already imagining how disappointed in him she is.

Mary shushes him, catching his tears with her thumb.

“Baby, it’s okay,” she assures him, kissing his forehead. “It’s okay, honey.”

That just makes Dean sob harder, and he tightens his hold on Mary, who braces herself before picking him up and carrying him into the house. She pulls off his rubber boots and drops them on the shoe mat, before taking a sniffling Dean back to his bed, whispering reassurances in his ear the whole way.

She sits him down on his _Star Wars_ bedsheets, and gets down on one knee to speak to him at eye level.

“Dean,” she says seriously, “please don’t cry, sweetie. It’s okay. None of the chickens got out, and most importantly, you didn’t get hurt. She takes both of his hands in hers. “Thank you very much for trying to help,” she smiles at him, “how about I show you how to properly collect eggs after school, okay?”

Dean rubs the tears from his eyes with closed fists, and Mary grabs a tissue from his nightstand, wiping away the tear tracts on his cheeks, and then holding it to his nose.

“Blow,” she instructs, and Dean complies, making a honking sound that startles a laugh out of him. Mary follows suit, and puts a hand on Dean’s cheek.

“I love you so much, baby,” she tells him, kissing him on both cheeks. “I never want you to forget that, okay?”

Dean sniffs and leans back, Mary pulling the covers over him and tucking him in snugly.

“I won’t,” Dean answers earnestly. “I love you too, mommy.”

Mary smiles softly, and kisses Dean on the forehead once more. He’s asleep in moments.

She walks to the doorway, and watches her baby sleep for a moment. Her eyes flick to the figurine that sits on one of Dean’s shelves, one of the ones Dean finds boring because it doesn’t move or light up or make noises. It’s stoic, but Mary has always seen something in those glass eyes that promises protection. Safety.

“Angels are watching over you,” she tells him quietly, reverently. “Always.”

That day, Dean’s primary class is told that they’ll be getting a new student tomorrow.

***

Missouri Mosley is a soft bodied, sharp minded woman with a southern accent and a penchant for all things homey. It’s why she became a kindergarten teacher, and it’s why she loves her job. Her classroom is an extension of herself, and a safe place for her children to learn. There are worn plaid curtains on the windows, comfortable pillows to sit on, and a chalkboard that’s seen more renditions of the Pledge of Allegiance than Mrs. Mosley can recall. Buttery sunshine bathes the room in light in the early mornings, warming the children and waking them up properly for another day of learning, and glints in their eyes as they come to understand one more mystery about the world they live in.

Mrs. Mosley has charged Dean with introducing the class to Castiel.

“Castiel?” Dean repeats, working through the unusual name. Mrs. Mosley smiles and pats Dean on the shoulder.

“You can do it, honey,” she encourages. “I met Castiel the other day. He’s going to be very nervous and shy, but he is a very nice boy. I think you two will become great friends.”

Dean loves people. He loves to talk to people and make friends. He loves to lead and direct and raise his hand and ask Mrs. Mosley question after question about everything they learn in class. Getting to be the first to speak to Castiel makes Dean grin.

“Okay!” he agrees enthusiastically, throwing his arms around Mrs. Mosley’s waist. “Thanks, Mrs. Mosley!”

Mrs. Mosley smiles wistfully and hugs Dean back.

“You’re a special boy, Dean Winchester,” she tells him, as he grabs her hand and leads her back into the classroom.

“You’re a special teacher, Mrs. Mosley,” he replies, and Mrs. Mosley feels her eyes get a little bit wet.

“Are we gonna learn how to write our names today?” Dean asks as they enter the bright, cheerful primary classroom. It’s playtime, and two dozen other children are milling about, reading picture books, playing board games, and coloring. Kids are yelling and laughing, and Dean can’t wait to get back into the fray.

“You bet, honey,” Mrs. Mosely promises, “After lunch we will.”

“I already know how to write my name,” Dean boasts proudly, chest puffed out. “Mommy taught me. I can write Sam’s name, too.”

“Good for you, sweetie,” Mrs. Mosely praises him, “Maybe you can help Castiel with his name once he arrives today.”

Dean nods vigorously, eyes bright and freckles prominent.

“When’s he gettin’ here?” Dean asks, chomping at the bit at the chance for a new friend.

Mrs. Mosley checks her watch.

“Any minute, actually,” she says, sounding somewhat surprised, like time has slipped away from her. “Okay Dean, you run along and join the other children, okay? I’ve got to get a few things ready for Castiel.”

Dean scampers off to play with his friends at the fake kitchen they have set up in the corner, complete with plastic fruits and vegetables that he loves to remind the other children are extremely important to eat to make you grow up big and strong.

“Apples are the best,” he declares, taking a big fake bite of a red and shiny one.

Jo Harvelle shakes her head and brandishes a plastic pot at him, “No way, silly. Pears are the best.”

“No!” Dean cries out, tugging at his borrowed gingham apron in frustration. “Apples are better!”

“Pears!”

“Apples!”

Jo clunks him over the head with the pan; a muffled _thunk_ that’s more affection than genuine annoyance.

They stare at each other for a moment, before dissolving into giggles.

“You hit me with the pot!” Dean snorts, still holding the apple in his chubby fist.

“I did!” Jo laughs, and then clunks herself over the head as well, sending another wave of giggles through Dean.

“Let’s cook dinner!” Dean exclaims, taking the pot from Jo and putting it in the sink. “It’s dirty now, so we have to wash it,” he announces. She follows him, eager to see what they’re making tonight. They’ve made many delectable suppers together, including but not limited to, spaghetti and cotton candy, macaroni and cheese and salsa, and cereal with orange juice.

“What are we gonna make?” Jo asks, sticking her thumb in her mouth and sucking avidly.

Dean searches through the cupboards and fridge, taking his time to choose something yummy. Eventually, he emerges with a pear. He places the apple still in his hand next to the pear on the counter.

“We’ll mix them together!” he crows, delighted with his ingenuity. “Then we can both like ‘em!”

Jo claps her hands, thrilled with the decision. “Let’s go!” she squeals, and tosses both fruits in the newly cleaned pot.

Dean turns the knobs on the stove and places the pot on it.

“It needs to cook for a few minutes,” he explains, pointing at the sticker timer that’s stuck to the plastic stove back.

“How long?” Jo asks around her thumb, eyes wide.

“Um,” Dean puts a finger on his chin, searches his mind for something his mom always says when she’s cooking. “Half an hour on medium heat,” he finally decides on.

“How long is that?” Jo asks.

Dean really doesn’t know.

“Like ten minutes,” he says with certainty, even if he has no idea how long half an hour actually is. Jo seems satisfied, though, and nods.

“Let’s go do the Star Wars puzzle again while we wait!” She suggests, and toddles off to the board games area before Dean can disagree.

They upend the box on the mat, and start sorting through the pieces eagerly, flipping over all the ones that are upside down.

“Corners first,” Jo reminds Dean, who rolls his eyes dramatically.

“I _know_ , Jo.”

They find the first three corners, and are searching for the bottom left one, when Mrs. Mosley claps her hands three times from the doorway. Save for some continuous murmurs, the noise immediately dies down and the class repeats Mrs. Mosley’s actions.

She smiles, pleased.

“Good job, everyone,” she congratulates them. “Now,” she steps to the side, and holds a hand out into the hallway, “I’ve told you all that we have a new classmate coming today, and he’s finally here.” Dean sees a small hand grip Mrs. Mosley’s, and she gently guides the owner of said hand into the light of the classroom.

A short boy wearing denim overalls and scuffed sneakers shuffles into the room, his face turned away. All the class can see of his face is the tuff of dark hair on top of his head. The boy’s hand tightens around Mrs. Mosley’s.

“Class,” Mrs. Mosley says, gently turning the boy to face everyone, “This is Castiel Novak.”

The first pair of eyes Castiel meets is Dean’s.

“Dean,” Mrs. Mosley prompts, “Do you have something to say to Castiel?”

Practically vibrating with excitement, Dean jumps up and half sprints over to Castiel.

“Hi, Castiel!” He exclaims, face shining. He reaches forward and hugs Castiel fiercely. Castiel’s eyes go wide, and he’s too shocked to return the hug. His hand is still clasped in Mrs. Mosley’s.

Dean lets go and laughs.

“That wasn’t a very good hug, Castiel!” He chastises. “Me ‘n’ Jo are doin’ a puzzle. You can do it too, if you want.”

Castiel scuffs a shoe.

“Thanks,” he murmurs softly.

“Cool!” Dean says, “And when it’s time for recess, you can play with us too.” His face lights up, like he just remembered something. “And at lunch, you can eat with us!” He grins toothily, like it just keeps getting better and better. “I’ll even share my cookies with you, if ya want, cause Mrs. Mosley said you were gonna be nervous today.”

Castiel seems rather overwhelmed with all the affection Dean is bestowing on him.

“Thank you,” he says, and manages a tiny smile.

“Alright, Dean,” Mrs. Mosley says, hiding a smile of her own, “You go on and work on your puzzle. I’ll help Castiel get settled.”

“’Kay!” Dean waves at Castiel and rushes back to Jo, who immediately whispers to him conspiratorially.

“That kid is weird,” she tells him, as they go back searching for the last corner piece.

“He’s _nervous_ ,” Dean explains, “Mrs. Mosley said so.”

“Oh.” Jo says, accepting the explanation, and they continue to work in silence.

“He’s gonna be my new friend,” Dean decides, grinning when he sees that Jo’s found the last corner piece.

Jo’s bottom lip quivers.

“Am I still gonna be your friend, too?” She asks, worried.

“Yes, silly!” Dean exclaims, “You’re always gonna be my friend.”

Jo breaks into a grin, all traces of unhappiness forgotten.

“Good,” she says, fitting two pieces together, “Then he can be my friend, too.”

As if on cue, a quiet voice interrupts their conversation.

“Hello,” Castiel says, voice barely above a whisper.

“Hey Castiel!” Dean moves over to give Castiel room to sit beside him. “Are you gonna help with the puzzle?”

“Okay,” Castiel agrees, his eyes brightening a bit at the sight of the puzzle pieces. “I like puzzles,” he admits, situating himself next to Dean.

“We have lots of ‘em,” Jo says, “they’re over there,” she points at the puzzle shelf that’s probably older than Mrs. Mosley herself, chipped and paint peeling.

“What’s the picture?” Castiel asks, seeming to finally relax a little bit as he looks over all the pieces Dean and Jo have already turned over.

Dean grabs the box on points to the picture on the front.

“ _Star Wars_!” He says with relish, and Jo seems just as enthused.

“What’s _Star Wars_?” Castiel asks, confused.

Dean and Jo look at each other.

“You don’t know what _Star Wars_ is?” Jo seems more confused than curious, and Dean just looks dismayed.

“No,” Castiel answers, suddenly seeming disappointed in himself for not knowing what they’re talking about.

Dean leans forward, as if about to impart some great wisdom upon Castiel.

“It’s so _cool_ ,” he gushes, and Jo nods fervently. “There’s the good guys and the bad guys, and they have light sabres that go _zzhhhnnnrewww_!” He slashes at the air like he’s fighting an imaginary opponent and Jo immediately pulls out her own imaginary light sabre.

“Not so fast, Han Solo!” She cries, pretending to hit Dean with her light sabre.

They both jump up, Castiel watching with wide eyes from his spot on the mat, and chase each other for approximately thirty seconds making their own sound effects before Mrs. Mosley scolds them for running in the classroom and sends them back to their puzzle.

They come back, twin grins plastered on and faces flushed. Jo’s pony tail is frizzy and Dean’s shoelace is untied.

“It’s the _coolest_ ,” Dean reiterates, “Maybe I can ask my mom and you can come over and watch the movies,”

Castiel, who was equal parts confused and eager mere seconds ago, suddenly deflates

“I don’t think I would be allowed,” he says quietly, staring at the puzzle that both Dean and Jo have forgotten.

Dean’s smile drops.

“Why not?” He asks, obviously disappointed.

Castiel shrugs and doesn’t say anything.

“Do you even have a mom to ask?” Dean asks with a typical four year old’s tact. “Cause I don’t have a dad.”

“Me either,” Jo chimes in.

“I have a mom,” Castiel defends himself. “I have a dad, too.”

“How come they didn’t take you to school today?” Jo persists, while Dean listens intently.

“Because they _didn’t_ ,” Castiel suddenly snaps, immediately quieting both Jo and Dean, who look a little taken aback.

There’s silence for a moment, until Dean says, “My dad is dead,” in the kind of childish way that means he doesn’t fully understand what that means yet.

“Mine too,” Jo adds.

Castiel looks around nervously, like he’s afraid to be talking about this particular subject.

“My dad doesn’t come home anymore,” he says quietly.

After a moment of thought, Dean offers, “Maybe he got lost.”

“Yeah, my mommy gets lost all the time when she’s driving in the car and says lots of bad words,” Jo adds, “Your daddy just needs a map.”

“You can go and find him,” Dean suggests, “Sometimes our dogs get out of the yard and we just gotta go and look for ‘em.”

“Okay,” Castiel says hesitantly, still searching for puzzle pieces, “I’ll tell my mom,” he bites his lip, worrying it for a moment before continuing, “my mom cries a lot now,” he admits.

Dean’s face immediately darkens.

“I don’t like it when my mom cries,” he says, “I hug my mom to cheer her up. Do you hug your mom?”

Castiel shakes his head, and Dean’s eyes widen.

“Does your mom hug _you_?” He asks immediately, like it’s a matter of great import.

Another shake of the head. Dean looks incredibly sad.

“Hugs are really important,” Dean says, very seriously, “My mom says hugs make everyone feel better.”

“Oh.” Castiel says. It’s the first thing he’s learned today, and the first thing he’s ever learned in school.

Dean leans forward to wrap Castiel in another hug. Dean loves to hug people. This time, Castiel hugs back.

“Did that make you feel better?” Dean asks, eyes wide and warm.

Castiel feels a smile spread slowly across his face.

“Yeah,” he says, “Thanks, Dean.”

“See?” Dean crows, pleased, “Hugs make everyone feel better!”

Jo suddenly claps her hands over her mouth.

“We forgot the fruit on the stove!” She squeals, and jumps out of her spot to rush back over to the play kitchen, her blond hair flying out behind her.

Dean’s mouth drops open.

“C’mon, Castiel!” He stands up, grabbing Castiel’s hand and pulling him along behind him. “Come cook with us!”

Like the kids they are, they leave the puzzle uncompleted and all over the place.

They have fruit to cook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A less pretentious summary would literally just be, "Cas and Dean fall in love".  
> That's it, that's the story. Just so you know.
> 
> This story is complete. Later parts are being edited, and I'll try to update once or twice a week.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the story has been fully edited and is complete and ready to post in eleven parts. I'll try to update twice a week, depending on my wifi situation.

“Tell me about school today,” Mary asks, as Dean drinks his after school apple juice from his favorite Batman cup that’s full of chips and scratches from all the use it gets. Sam is asleep in his crib, and Mary sits across from Dean at the kitchen table, mug of tea cupped in her palms. The curtains are open and the afternoon sun streams in, dust motes dancing above the sink.

“There’s a new kid at school,” Dean announces happily, after a loud slurp of juice.

“Oh? A boy or a girl?” Mary takes a sip of her own drink, and Dean watches in fascination at the steam that’s still rising from the mug. For some reason, she doesn’t seem too surprised.

“Boy. He’s called Castiel.”

Dean mirrors Mary’s grip on his own cup, and blows on his juice like he’s seen her do a million times over morning coffee or tea.

“And where is Castiel from?”

Dean scrunches up his face, trying to remember. Eventually, he realizes he doesn’t know, and shrugs.

Mary smiles like she knows a very exciting secret.

“Do you like Castiel?” She asks non-chalantly, leaning back in her chair.

Dean breaks into a toothy grin.

“Yeah!” He crows, throwing his arms out in unencumbered gesticulation. “He cooked with me ‘n’ Jo today and we did a puzzle!” His eyes suddenly grow wide and sombre, apple juice forgotten. “He’s never seen _Star Wars_ ,” he whispers, like it would be blasphemy to say it any louder.

Mary puts a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, no,” she gasps, humoring him, “well that just can’t be.”

Dean nods seriously.

“Can he come over sometime and watch ‘em? I told him I’d ask.”

Mary smiles. “Of course, sweetie. In fact,” she gets up and disappears for a moment, and Dean hears the front door open, “Can you come here for a minute?”

Curious, Dean follows Mary to the front door.

“Do you remember how there was a moving truck next door a couple days ago?” She asks, pointing down the road to where Dean knows the empty light blue house resides. It’s the only house on this dusty lane other than the Winchesters’.

“Yeah,” Dean nods, remembering the big orange truck Mary wouldn’t let him go near. He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

“Well,” Mary leans against the doorframe with an exceptionally pleased smile on her face, though there’s a quick flash of something that Dean is still too young to understand. “I went to go meet the neighbours this morning, since we wanted to give them a few days to settle in before saying hi, right?”

Dean nods again, also remembering that conversation and the inevitable disappointment on not getting to meet some new friends right away.

“Well, guess whose family moved in next door?”

Dean’s face lights up like a Christmas tree.

“Castiel?” He yells, forgetting himself and his indoor voice entirely for a moment. This is better than anything Dean could have dreamed of.  He’ll talk to anyone, of course. Grandparents, dogs, little brothers, moms, teenagers, anyone. But having someone his own age, from his own class, living right next door? Dean’s almost deliriously excited.

Mary nods, her eyes soft and fond as she gazes at Dean, overexcited and currently tugging on her hand impatiently.

“Can we go see him?” Dean begs, trying to pull her across the lawn with all the strength he can muster.

Mary laughs and pulls Dean back and into a hug, which he only struggles momentarily against before hugging back enthusiastically.

“This is gonna be awesome!” He cries into Mary’s shoulder, green eyes sparkling in the golden sun.

Mary squeezes him tight before pulling back.

“How about we bake some muffins for the Novaks, okay?”

“Muffins? _Yes_!” Dean charges back into the house, and the clanging of pots and pans can be heard from the doorway.

“I wonder what kind of muffins Castiel likes?” Mary hears him ask himself, and she has to suppress a smile.

***

Muffin baking is much more of an ordeal when Dean is around, and if things are being baked, Dean is usually around. It’s a very controlled, domestic chaos, however, that always leaves Dean with a safe and content feeling in his belly.

They bake various kinds- because they couldn’t decide on just one- and they finally makes their way into the oven, and Mary, looking slightly more frazzled than when they started, smooths her hands over her apron. Dean notices, and does the same on his own apron.

When Mary sees Dean, she immediately breaks into giggles and points at his face.

“Honey, you have flour _all_ over your face,” she tells him.

Dean swipes his forearm across his forehead, and it comes back white. Dean joins his mother in her laughter, and she grabs his hand and leads him over to the sink to wash up.

“So we’ll head over and drop the muffins off before supper,” Mary decides, as she dabs Dean’s face with a damp cloth. “Sound good?” She swipes across Dean’s forehead, holding his head in place with her free hand.

Dean nods as best he can in his current position.

“Sounds good!”

“Good.” One more swipe, and Dean is flour free. “Arms up,” she instructs, and Dean lifts his arms as she pulls his apron over his head. She hangs it on the rack next to her own apron. Between all the cooking that goes on in the Winchester house, both Dean and Mary own more than one. Today, Dean had selected the one with giant sunflowers drawn all over it, and Mary had gone with a traditional checkered one.

“Clean up time,” Mary announces, and Dean dutifully reaches for a cloth to wipe down the counter as Mary starts putting ingredients away.

Baking cleanup is usually accompanied by some singing, and today is no exception. Together, Mary and Dean sing _Blackbird_ , voices high and lilting.

They putz around the kitchen, dodging each other with practiced ease. They’ve cooked together enough times to have developed some semblance of a rhythm, at least.  Mary washes the dishes, and Dean dries with the dish rag, throwing it over his shoulder like he’s seen his mom and chefs on television do whenever he gets the chance.

Finally, they’re done, and Mary sends Dean to Sam’s room to get his blanket as she grabs his carrier.

Dean tip toes into his baby brother’s room, extremely careful not to wake him. Sam’s nursery is decked out in pastels, soft yellows and sky blues and spring greens that make his room seem bigger than it is. Second hand toys passed down from Dean are littered around the room, a teddy bear with only one eye here, a stringy haired rocking horse there. The warm breeze drifts in through the open window, the scent of honeysuckle and lilac lightly perfuming the room.

Dean creeps up to his brother’s crib, and in one practiced, smooth motion, he swings himself up and over the top bar, laying himself down next to Sam.

“Hey, Sammy,” he whispers, watching his brother’s chest rise and fall steadily beneath his light blue onesie. “Me ‘n’ mommy just baked some muffins. I’ll teach you how to bake muffins sometime, kay?”

Sam is sleeping, so he obviously doesn’t hear what Dean’s said, but Dean is determined to keep his promise.

“I love you, Sammy,” he says, and gently wraps his brother in an awkward, one armed hug. Dean closes his eyes, and is halfway to sleeping when he feels a loving hand resting in his hair.

“We can go to Castiel’s house tomorrow, baby, if you just want to sleep,” Mary whispers, leaning over to kiss Dean’s temple.

Dean blinks himself awake, rubbing the grit out of his eyes with chubby fists.

“No!” he gasps, yawning big and wide.

Mary huffs a laugh.

“Alright then, my stubborn boy. Let’s go visit the neighbours.”

Dean’s motor skills are still a little impaired from the half nap, so Mary lifts him out of the crib, and then reaches back in to lift Sam out. She kisses Sam’s forehead before laying him down in the carrier she’d brought in with her, and tucks the blanket that Dean was supposed to be fetching around him.

Dean follows her out of the room, and once they’re in the kitchen, Mary hands him the basket full of muffins.

“Are you able to carry these down the road?” she asks Dean as she opens the front door.

“Yeah!” Dean insists, both hands wrapped around the dark wicker handle. It’s pretty heavy, he thinks, but he can handle it. After all, his mom already has Sammy, and he doesn’t want her to have to do anymore work than she has to.

Because they live in the rural part of the county, (Dean once heard his mom refer to it as “the sticks”, though he doesn’t understand what that means) the Novaks live about half a mile down the dead end dirt lane they live on.

Mary has her free hand guiding Dean down the road, and Dean scuffs his rubber boots and kicks pebbles as they walk.

“You could have worn your sneakers, you know,” Mary informs him.

“I wanted to wear my boots,” Dean answers, moving his right foot just enough so that it squeaks, just to prove a point.

Mary rolls her eyes good naturedly. “Whatever you say.”

It’s a warm afternoon. Dean can hear the buzzing of cicadas and the fading clucks of chickens as they walk further from the house. The wheat fields off the side of the road extend as far as he can see, yellow and happy in the nice weather. When the breeze ruffles them, they all move at once, and it makes Dean feel like he’s swimming. He tilts his head back, facing the sky full of cotton ball clouds.

About halfway to Castiel’s house, they pass an old truck that’s been here for longer than the Winchesters, tires long gone and rims rustier than Dean’s ever seen anything. It looks more like part of the landscape than an actual piece of machinery, yellow grass growing up its sides as if reclaiming the base components of the metals as their own. The windows in the cab are mostly broken, and what glass remains in the frames is dusty and opaque with dirt.

“How’re you doing with those muffins?” Mary asks, ruffling her hair to keep the air circulating.

“Good!” Dean chirps, though he can’t promise the basket hasn’t already taken a few hits from bumping on the ground.

Mary huffs a knowing laugh, and places a gentle hand between Dean’s shoulder blades. She absently rubs his back as Dean does his best to pretend like he’s not having any trouble.

After a particularly worrying hit to the basket, Mary reaches out a hand and grips the part of the handle Dean isn’t already holding.

“How about we carry it together?” She suggests, pointedly looking at how much better the basket travels between the two of them.

Dean scoffs.

“I _guess_ ,” he allows, borderline saucy, “I can carry it by myself though.”

“I know, honey,” Mary assures him. “I’m glad you’re letting someone help you, though.”

They carry the muffins in silence. Eventually, Castiel’s house appears around the slight bend in the road, and Dean almost flies out of his boots he’s so excited.

“There it is!” he practically shouts, pointing with his free hand. “Castiel lives right there!”

Castiel’s house is light blue, with white, battered shutters. It’s old and weathered- just like the Winchesters’. They don’t have any chicken coops, but they have a big red barn far back on their property, though it doesn’t look like they’re going to put it to any use.

“C’mon, mommy!” Dean is half running now, his boots clomping excitedly on the hard packed dirt pathway. Mary has to scold him for trying to run across Castiel’s lawn, and the two of them manage to walk up the driveway and knock on the white door with chipped paint without any further incident.

Dean doesn’t notice, but Mary’s grip on the basket has tightened and she’s gritting her teeth. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable, but trying her best not to show it.

There’s a commotion on the other side of the door, and Dean can hear muffled yelling. It sounds like a bunch of kids are playing somewhere inside, and Dean perks up at the sound. More kids for him to play with? Does Castiel have brothers or sisters? Both?

The door opens only a sliver, and Dean can hardly see the woman on the other side. The woman sees Dean first, who smiles blindingly at her. Her answering smile towards him is minimal at best. She sees Mary, and opens the door a little wider, though her hands seem to waver for a moment in which way they want the door to move.

“Mary,” she greets with a curt nod, smile twitching up a couple degrees.

“Hello, Joan,” Dean watches with pride as Mary smiles back, though he notices that it’s not the same kind of smile his mom gives other people. This one seems less… smiley, to Dean. Even if it’s the same expression, there’s something tight and uneasy about it. “I’m so sorry to be back again today, but Dean here was just so excited once I told him that Castiel lives here, since they’re classmates and all, so we figured we’d bribe you for your company with homemade muffins.”

She hands the basket fully to Dean, who hugs his arms around it as he thrusts it up at Joan.

“Here you go!” he grins, standing on tiptoes so Joan doesn’t have to bend down as far. “Me and mommy made all kinds, cause we didn’t know what you liked.” He points a thumb at his own chest. “I like chocolate chip muffins, so we made sure to put some in there for Castiel. There’s also blueberry, lemon, apple, um…” he puts a finger on his chin, trying to remember the other flavor. When he can’t, he looks to Mary for help, who bends down and whispers the other flavor into Dean’s ear after throwing a tight lipped smile at Joan, thanking her for indulging them.

“Yeah! Cinnamon raison too!” he crows as Joan removes the basket from him. Dean notices that she has purple rings under her eyes, and her brown hair is frizzy and flyaway. It reminds Dean of how his own mom looks sometimes, and it makes him sad because he knows that means Joan is very tired.

Joan manages a wan smile, and steps back from the door, allowing Dean and Mary room to enter.

“Please come in,” she invites, adding, “It’s nice to meet you, Dean,”

Dean beams.

There’s still moving boxes all over the place, and Dean’s eyes grow comically wide as he imagines all the possibilities for them once they’re empty. He’s suddenly got visions of cardboard firetrucks, spaceships, monster trucks, and a hundred more whirling around in his head, ready to go at the first sign of an empty box.

He also can’t stop craning his neck, constantly hearing kids and feet running around upstairs, keeping a sharp eye out for Castiel.

“Is Castiel here?” he asks, almost breathlessly. He really can’t believe that Castiel lives _right_ here. The last people who lived in this house were nice, but they were too old. The Novaks living here is just… perfect.

“Just head on upstairs. All the kids are horsing around up there,” Joan tells him, and Dean is off like a shot, weaving through the boxes and climbing the stairs two at a time. Back in the front entrance, he hears Joan offer his mom a drink.

It’s not exactly small upstairs, but it’s cramped. There’s a lot of hallway that Dean has to search through before he literally runs smack into someone who is most definitely not Castiel. This boy is much older, and he has hazel eyes and sandy hair, very unlike Castiel’s dark hair and blue eyes.

“Who’re you?” the boy asks, looking Dean up and down.

Suddenly shy, Dean stares at the dark carpet and scuffs his socked foot.

“Dean,” he mumbles, “ I’m lookin’ for Castiel.”

The boy stares at him for a moment before suddenly bellowing, “CASTIEL!” at the top of his lungs, making Dean jump.

“I think Cas is _reading_ ,” he says, scorn obvious in his voice. And then from another part of the house, a voice yells out, “GABRIEL,” and the sandy haired boy is off without another word, disappearing down the hallway and around a corner.

Dean peers around him, taking in the scuffed white walls and the little golden cross that hangs at the end of the hallway. He knows what the cross is, and he’s seen the church in town, but he’s never been inside. He remembers asking Mary about it, but she never answered him properly, though the lines around her mouth tightened. Dean didn’t ask again.

Dean hears light footsteps, and he turns to see Castiel coming down the hallway off to his left.

“Dean?” He says, confused.

“Hey, Castiel!” Dean rushes him and envelops him a bear hug, tight enough that Castiel has to breathe deeply for a moment after Dean releases him.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Castiel asks, still obviously confused.

“Me and my mom brought over muffins!” Dean cries, pleased as punch, “Cause we’re neighbors now!”

Castiel’s eyes go wide.

“Really?” he says quietly, awed.

Dean nods. “Yeah! We live in the house over there!” he points in the general direction. “We made all kinds of muffins. I like chocolate chip so we made lots of those in case you like chocolate chip too.”

A small smile appears on Castiel’s face.

“I like chocolate chip,” he says, like it’s some kind of secret.

Dean’s eyes sparkle.

“Cool!”

Castiel turns back down the hallway, and Dean follows.

“So what do ya wanna play?” he asks, practically stepping on Castiel’s heels from walking so closely behind him.

“I was looking at a book,” Castiel says, opening up more as they get closer to his room. “It’s a book about dinosaurs and there are lots of pictures.”

“I l _ove_ dinosaurs,” Dean enthuses.

Dean follows Castiel into his room, and they plop themselves down on the carpet together to browse Castiel’s picture book. Since Castiel has had the book read to him, he knows all about the dinosaurs, and tells Dean all about them, getting more animated the more pages they turn.

They turn to a fresh page, and Castiel points at a picture of a tyrannosaurs rex.

“That’s a t-rex!” Dean and Cas shout in unison, because everyone knows what a t-rex looks like. They look at each other for a moment before bursting into giggles.

Feet thunder outside of Castiel’s room, and they both look up from their book.

“Who was that kid out there?” Dean asks, referring to his first moments upstairs, “The big one?”

“Probably Gabe,” Castiel replies. The pounding outside the room continues, but Castiel, unbothered, returns to the book. “He’s my brother.”

“Well then who yelled at Gabe?”

Castiel turns a page.

“Probably Balthazar,” he says, bored. “My other brother.”

“Balthazar! Gabe! Stop! _Stop_!” They hear from somewhere out in the hallway. The voice doesn’t sound pleased at all.

“Is that _another_ brother?” Dean asks, eyes wide, getting up and going to the door.

“Yeah, that’s Michael.” He turns another page. “Michael doesn’t really like games.”

“Wow,” Dean marvels, peeking out the door. They’ve obviously relocated to another part of the floor, and Dean can hear muffled thumps coming through the walls. “I only have one brother, and he’s a baby.”

“I’m the baby here,” Castiel replies, finally turning the last page of the book. Obviously satisfied, he closes it with a _whump_ and slots it back into place on his bookshelf. “I have a sister, too,” he adds on. “She’s called Anna.”

Dean’s eyes bug out. “You have-” he pauses, counts on his fingers, “ _four_ brothers and sisters?!”

“Yeah.”

“ _Wow_.”

Dean contemplates the immensity that is four brothers and sisters for a moment, while Castiel putters around his room, looking for something to do.

An idea strikes Dean, then, and he’s immeasurably ecstatic.

“Hey, wanna meet my brother?”  He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of it sooner. He _loves_ showing off his baby brother, _loves_ the feeling of pride that swoops in his stomach when people say what a great brother he must be.

Castiel smiles.

“Okay!” he exclaims, and leads Dean through the creaking hallways again, back downstairs to the quiet murmur of Mary and Joan’s voices over the soft clinking of tea cups.

When they appear around the corner, Mary’s entire demeanour brightens, and even Joan manages a small smile for her son.

“Hello, boys!” Mary greets them, chipper as ever. Dean rushes over and flings his arms around Mary’s shoulders.

“Hi mom!” he buries his face in her sweater, breathes in the scent of _mom_.

“Hi baby,” Mary kisses his hair and rubs his back briefly.

Dean pulls back, still holding onto Mary’s sleeves.

“Can I show Sammy to Castiel?” he asks, face open and hopeful.

“Of course, sweetie.” Mary glances at Castiel, who’s sitting beside his own mother on the couch. He didn’t hug her when he came in the room. “Maybe I should meet Castiel first, though?”

Dean immediately jumps up.

“This is Cas,” he says, and walks over where Castiel is sitting, tugging him into a hug of his own. “We’re friends!” He kisses Castiel on the cheek, and Castiel’s eyes go wide. Joan’s practically fall out of her skull.

Mary, used to Dean’s affections, smiles fondly.

“Hello, Castiel,” she says warmly, holding out a friendly hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Castiel is hesitant, but Dean nudges him forward.

“You have to shake hands, Cas,” he stage whispers.

Slowly, Castiel slots his hand into Mary’s. She shakes his hand, and puts her other hand on top of their clenched ones. “I’m very glad we can be neighbours.”

Castiel mumbles something and steps away, eyes on the floor. Everyone is silent for a moment.

“Well,” Joan finally comments, after clearing her throat loudly. She smooths her skirt down with her palms, “That’s a cute nickname. ‘Cas’.”

Mary nods and immediately chimes in, “I think it’s adorable,”

Dean is completely reveling in the attention, beaming around at everybody with a megawatt smile, but he decides that it’s time for Sam’s turn in the spotlight. He pads over to where Sam’s carrier is, and peers in. His brother’s wide, curious eyes stare back at him, and he breaks out into a smile when he recognizes Dean. He gurgles contentedly, and Dean immediately bends down to pat Sam’s head.

“Heya, Sammy,” he murmurs, extending a pinky for Sam to grab onto. Sam coos and grasps Dean’s finger like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

Dean feels a presence at his back, and shifts over a bit. Cas kneels down beside him, and looks at Sam in something akin to wonder.

“Hi Sam,” he says, and, following Dean’s lead, extends his own pinky. He’s pressed between Dean and the worn brown fabric of the couch Mary is sitting on, and Sam stares at this new face hard, considering. Evidently deciding Cas is okay, he gives a happy squeal and grabs Cas’ finger as well. He swings both Dean and Cas’ hands around like he’s conducting an orchestra, and Dean laughs out loud, Cas laughing right along with him.

“Sammy is so cool,” Dean explains, glancing at Cas out of the corner of his eye, but focusing the majority of his attention on his little brother. He’s radiating pride like a vent radiates heat, eyes clear and focused.

Cas, who has never had any younger siblings of his own, eagerly nods his agreement, and Sam bubbles out a laugh-turned-burp that has Dean and Cas both howling with laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean and Mary head home about an hour before suppertime, but not before Dean has properly and completely hugged both Joan and Cas.  Cas, who seems to be getting somewhat used to the hugging by now, even tentatively hugs Dean back. Joan is stiff and awkward as a board, her grey streaked hair hanging limp in the chasm between her and Dean as he wraps his arms around her tiny middle.

With a wave from both parting Winchesters- Mary’s formal and Dean’s cheerful- the front door of the Novak’s house is closed, Dean clasps his mom’s hand, and they’re off down the dirt path, retracing their steps from earlier today. Dean swings their hands eagerly, his play date with Castiel not having drained his energy reserves at all.

“What did you and Castiel play this afternoon?” Mary asks, looking like a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

Dean immediately launches into a detailed description of reading about dinosaurs and teaching Cas about _Star Wars_ and having imaginary light sabre fights. He tells Mary about all of Cas’ brothers and sisters, -“he has _four_ , mommy!!”- and all the noise they made upstairs, yelling at each other and playing games.

“How come I don’t have more brothers and sisters?” Dean asks after he’s finished explaining all the escapades of Cas’ siblings, childish confusion in his voice.

Mary swallows and nervously brushes her hair back off her shoulders. She stops walking, and hovers for a moment, deliberating.

They’ve found themselves back at the halfway point between their house and the Novaks’- the rusted tractor. Mary eyes it, and then walks Dean over to it.

“C’mere-” she lifts Dean onto the huge front tire- well away from any sharp or rusty parts- with a quiet grunt, and manages a slight smile, blowing a tuff of hair off her forehead. “Jeepers, mister, you’re sure heavy, you know that?” A slight breeze blows, and Dean hears it whisper through the wheat field behind him, reassuring him. He can smell nighttime coming, can feel it in the heaviness of his eyelids and the change in the air. Mary’s eyes suddenly get wistful and misty, as if a thought has just occurred to her. She puts a hand on Dean’s cheek, who automatically leans into his mother’s touch.

“You’re growing up so fast,” she murmurs, stroking her thumb across the apple of Dean’s cheek. “Your dad would be so proud of you,” she continues, a solitary tear escaping and running down her own cheek.

“Mommy?” Dean jumps to the rescue as well as he can, his own finger wiping away the tear before Mary even manages to lift her arm. She coughs, watery, and Dean feels the familiar itch of tears behind his own eyes. He doesn’t like to see his mom cry.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Mary smiles through her foggy vision, and holds tightly onto Dean’s shoulders so he doesn’t slip off the tire. “It’s okay. Mommy just got a little sad for a second.”

Dean’s chin quivers, and his voice flutters as he asks, “Why are you sad?”

Mary flashes a tight, close mouthed smile at Dean, before leaning in and kissing him on the forehead.

“You know how much I love you, right, Dean?”

Dean nods solemnly. “This much,” he says, and holds his arms out as wide as he can. Mary nods, looking like she’s holding back more tears.

“And how much do I love Sammy?” she asks, glancing down at where Dean’s little brother is sleeping soundly in his carrier.

“This much,” Dean answers, again holding his arms out as far as he can.

“That’s right,” and Mary glances at her two boys with enough fondness that Dean can’t help but feel his spirits lift a little. His mom loves him so much.

Mary swallows and takes a deep breath before continuing, plastering the best possible smile she can across her face.

“Then why do you need any more siblings, if I already love you and your brother to the moon and back?”

Dean contemplates this sentence for a moment, and Mary does her best to compose herself. Dean scrunches up his face, his freckles all coalescing as he thinks it over. He pulls at the bottom of the sweater that Mary made him wear absent mindedly, stretching it.

“Does that mean that Cas’ mommy doesn’t love Cas and his brothers as much ?” Dean asks.

Mary’s eyes go wide, shocked, tears forgotten for the moment.

“No no, honey, not at all! I’m sorry if I made it sound that way.” She runs a hand through her hair, looking for a way to explain that’s appropriate for a four year old. She takes another deep breath, and makes she Dean is looking directly at her.

 “Dean, this is something very important, do you understand?”

Dean nods, awed.

“Everybody is different. Everybody likes different things, and everybody doesn’t like different things. And you know that that’s okay, right? You’re allowed to like different things. Everybody is different in their own way.”

Dean nods again seriously. He understands that this is no laughing matter.

“So, Castiel’s mother has five children, and I have two- you and Sam. The number of kids you have doesn’t change how much your mom loves you, do you understand?”

Once again, Dean nods.

“Castiel’s mother and I are different. She has five children who she loves to the moon and back, and I have two children that I love to the moon and back. Do you understand?” She asks once more.

“Yes mommy,” Dean nods again.

Mary surveys him for a moment, assessing, and then lifts him off the tire suddenly to swoop him into a hug.

“That’s my boy,” she says, and swings him around. Dean, startled, squeals out loud.

She twirls around with Dean in her arms a couple more times before her arms tire, and she sets him back on the tire.

“Stay there for a sec, hon,” Mary directs, “Sammy kicked off his blanket in his sleep and I’m going to fix it.” She kneels down to place the blanket back over Sam’s torso, and kisses her index finger before briefly touching it to the tip of his nose.

“Alright,” she stands up, Sam’s carrier in one hand, the other held out toward Dean, still on the tire.

“Do you need help getting down?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Naw, I can do it.”

He preps himself to jump off, and once he realizes how high up he actually is, he looks back to Mary with pleading eyes. Wordlessly, she extends her hand again, and he grabs it gratefully.

He slides off the top of the tire, and a loud ripping noise is heard behind him. He jumps, startled, and turns around to see where it came from. Him turning around puts his back to Mary, who can now see _exactly_ where the noise came from.

“Uh oh,” she says, reaching out to put a finger through the rip in the back of Dean’s sweater.

Dean spins around.

“What? What?”

“It was your sweater that ripped,” Mary informs him. “Here, arms up.” They’re not too far from home, and it’s still a fairly warm night, so Mary figures Dean can walk the rest of the way in his t-shirt. Dean obliges, and Mary pulls the sweater off. She shows the hole to Dean, whose eyes go wide.

“Sorry,” he whispers, voice small.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Mary assures him, ruffling his hair. “It’s just a little rip, nothing we can’t fix.”

Dean brightens at that. “Really?”

Mary nods, examining the hole.

“How about I teach you how to sew this up after dinner?” she offers, draping the sweater over her arm as they start walking again.

“Okay!” Dean exclaims, way more excited for chores than he ever will be in the future.

Mary does her best to keep her amusement from showing.

“Mom, can I skip the rest of the way home?” Dean practically begs, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Mary figures it’s her own fault, since she was the one who forced Dean to sit still for more than two seconds on the tire and give him an Important Talk.

“Go ahead, honey. Just make sure I can still you.”

“Thanks mommy!” Dean skips off, singing one of his made up songs to himself, and Mary can’t help the pang that shoots through her, after she realizes that Dean is already four years old. He’s started school, making friends, and it’s only a matter of time before he has his first kiss and he gets his first job, and then he’ll go off to school and fall in love and buy a house and have a family of his own, and it hits her so hard that she almost stumbles.

She does her very very best not to think of the extra baby blanket that she’s kept at the back of her closet ever since John died.

***

The weeks fly by, a whirl of play dates with Cas and Jo, and Dean comes home every day with multiple stories about their escapades together. Not only that, but he loves to talk about what he learned, often showing off his new skills to Mary, who indulges him shamelessly. He learns his letters and his numbers, and brings home picture books to read before bedtime. More often than not, he’ll end up reading them to Sam, doing all the voices as silly as possible, while Mary listens from the doorway and Sam claps his hands in delight.

It’s early November, most of the children in Dean’s class still reeling from the frankly alarming amount of sugar they’ve ingested since Halloween, Dean included. Playtime has been more exuberant than usual, the normal hustle and bustle giving way to outdoor voices and crayons flying from one side of the room to the other. Mrs. Mosley has been teaching kindergarten long enough to know that it’s best to let the post-Halloween high wear out on its own time, and she shuffles papers behind her desk, considering the pros and cons of taking an Advil.

The layout of the classroom is somewhat of a misshapen “L”, with a small alcove at the top that completely disappears from view when the door is open, meaning Mrs. Mosley can’t see it from her desk. Dean very clearly remembers the very stern warnings from Mrs. Mosley about no one playing back there, since she can’t see them, but Dean knows that Mrs. Mosley is busier trying to deal with her headache today, and he’s been struck with a mischievous whim.

Dean convinces a completely on-board Jo, and a somewhat hesitant Castiel, to join him in the “clubhouse”, as the kids like to call it, and they manage to sneak into it without anyone- most importantly, Mrs. Mosley- noticing.

It’s a little darker in the alcove, the door blocking much of the light from the classroom. Dean, Jo, and Cas have plenty of room to maneuver, and giggle quietly, excited to share this secret between themselves.

“We’re gonna get in so much trouble!” Jo whispers scandalously, eyes wide and shining in the dark. Castiel nods his agreement fearfully, though his eyes aren’t empty of excitement, either.

Dean gestures, and they all huddle close together, dropping their voices even lower.

“Okay, guys, what do you wanna play?” he asks in all his childish seriousness, draping one arm over Jo’s shoulder and one over Castiel’s.

Cas shrugs, but Jo “Um’s” and puts a finger on her chin dramatically, thinking hard. Her face lights up when she comes up with an idea, and she barely refrains from clapping her hands together.

“Let’s play house!”

Dean scoffs, nose scrunched up.

“We _always_ play house,” he complains petulantly, throwing a hand in the air, “Let’s play something else.”

 “No, _no_!” Jo shakes her head, blond pigtails whipping viciously back and forth, “I wanna be the kid for once. I’m always the mommy!”

“But then who’s gonna be the mommy?” Dean asks skeptically.

Jo glances at Castiel out of the corner of her eye, and before anyone can come up with any kind of protest, she decides, “Cas.”

“Cas can’t be the mommy!” Dean argues.

“Fine, Cas can be the daddy,” Jo amends, rolling her eyes.

“But _I’m_ always the daddy!”  Dean whines.

Jo is about to snark back, but Cas interrupts before she gets the chance to.

“We can both be the daddies,” he suggests, like it’s the most reasonable request in the world.

Dean contemplates sharing his fatherly duties with Cas, while Jo immediately latches onto the idea.

“Okay!” She exclaims, starting the hustle and bustle that always comes with starting a new game of house. “Since you’re both daddies, we gotta marry you two.” She gestures to the spot in front of her, smile wide.

Dean, who’s still a little uncomfortable with sharing his duties with Cas, drags his feet to their make believe altar. Cas, only a bit shorter than him, stands straight and tall beside him.

Jo puts her hands out in front of her, then clasps them together. “Look at each other now,” she instructs bossily, and Dean and Cas turn so that they’re facing each other. She steps forward and taps both of them on the side of the head smartly, then steps back. “Okay, you daddies are married now,” she announces, “now you gotta kiss…” and her voice goes devilish at the “k” word, “ _on the lips_!” she finishes with relish, giggling maniacally behind her hands at her clever little prank.

Usually, their games of house start with a marriage or a boyfriend and a girlfriend, or whichever kind of home situation the kid getting married lives in. They’ve had grandparents and brothers and sisters, stepdads and aunts and godmothers all act as heads of house. One time they even had a dog as the head of a house, since the kid who was getting married insisted that his mom claimed, “Spot is the real boss around here.”

Unusually, their games of house start with a kiss. Sometimes, when the kids feel especially silly, they’ll call for one, either on the cheek or on the lips (so long as Mrs. Mosley isn’t looking).  Dean has kissed Jo before, and he just kissed Cas on the cheek a couple weeks back, and a couple times since then. Dean isn’t shy about his affections, and shares them often among his friends.

So when Jo announces that they have to kiss, Dean takes it in stride, but Cas suddenly blanches, flinching away when Dean leans forward for a peck on the lips.

“Cas,” Dean chastises, “You gotta kiss me.”

“Um,” Cas straightens up, obviously flustered. “Kay.”

Dean leans forward again, and Cas doesn’t move away this time. Dean plants a chaste peck on Cas’ mouth, and Jo promptly “ewwwww”s from her spot in front of them.

“Gross, daddies!” she complains.

“Go to your room!” Dean orders, pointing to the opposite wall of the alcove. Cas and Jo both giggle, and Jo obediently goes to stand by the wall, trying her best to muffle her laughter.

Their game of house continues, with the married daddies and the silly daughter, and Cas relaxes again, beginning to understand that the warmth that flows through him is affection, both given and received.

***

The school year troops on, November melting into December, Christmas vacation, January, spring break, and then before anyone is completely ready, it’s actually spring again, flowers popping up here and there, and Dean and Cas are delighted, spending hours in the fields around their houses, picking the ones with the most vibrant petals and presenting them to each other, to their mothers, to their siblings, with goofy, lopsided smiles.

They make up games together, running around and yelling incoherently, all flailing limbs and dramatic sound effects. Should they ever get their hands on an empty box, (which isn’t too difficult, since Joan has finally unpacked the boxes, and at Castiel’s and Dean’s insistence, kept them in an underused closet for them to use whenever they want)they’re absolutely off, sailing around the universe in a make believe spaceship, or flying in one of those big jumbo jets that neither of them has ever been on, or on a pirate ship in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by scallywags and mutineers and every kind of scowley one eyed, peg legged, growly pirate their imaginations can come up with.

Dean is constantly ecstatic to have a neighbour to play with all the time, and Mary is constantly relieved. As much as she loves Dean with every breath she takes, she’s not unaware of the fact that he’s nigh unstoppable, and the fact that he burns most of his energy off by running around with Castiel sends her to bed happy each night, knowing that Dean is enjoying himself, and Mary can relax more than she has in the last four years of her life. Sitting on the sagging back porch with an ever growing Sam in one hand, and a book in the other, she’s perfectly content to watch over Dean and Cas as they play their game of the week.

As she kisses Dean’s flushed cheeks every night when he finally comes inside for supper, and Michael, Castiel’s oldest brother, has come to walk him home, Mary can’t help but wonder, with a pang in her chest, if things could ever get better than this.

It hits her hard when she realizes that, no, they probably can’t.

***

The school year is over, and though Dean doesn’t really know how long two months is, he knows he’s going to spend it playing with Sam and his mom and Castiel and Jo, and he can’t wait.

He throws his arms around Mrs. Mosley, who hugs him just as fiercely back.

“You come back and visit, you hear me, mister?” Mrs. Mosley orders, wagging a finger at Dean after they’ve broken apart.

“Yes!” Dean smiles, his freckles standing out more than usual because of all the time he’s spent in the sun lately. “I’m gonna visit you every day!”

Mrs. Mosley chuckles. “Alright, Dean, I’m going to hold you to that.”

In a move he’s learned from watching movies with Mary, Dean salutes. “Okay.”

Mrs. Mosley puts a comforting, soft hand on Dean’s shoulder, and bends down so that they’re eye to eye.

“You have an amazing summer, Dean Winchester,” she says, voice sincere, “And I want you to know what a pleasure it’s been teaching you this year.”

Dean grins, and hugs Mrs. Mosley one more time.

“I love you, Mrs. Mosley,” he says, voice muffled by her shoulder. “I promise to come back and visit.”

Mrs. Mosley kisses Dean on his hair, and squeezes him once more before letting him go.

“Alright honey, I believe you,” she says, straightening up. She waves to Mary, who’s waiting with the other parents to pick up their children on the last day, which is only a half day. Mary waves back cheerfully, Sam in his carrier right beside her. “Go see your mom, now, okay? Enjoy your summer.”

And Dean takes off, only to be enveloped by Mary in another bear hug as soon as he reaches her.

Mrs. Mosley watches the exchange with only slightly misty eyes.

She has a good feeling about Dean Winchester, and she’s always been good at reading people.

He’s going to be just fine.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s the last week of summer, and they’re sprawled out on a red and white checkered picnic blanket in the backyard, various Tupperware containers littering the space between them. Mary sits off to the side in a folding chair, the brim of her sunhat pulled down over her eyes, and she’s reading a paperback book with a lot of small words and no pictures, which means Dean isn’t the least bit interested.

All of his attention is on two of his favorite people in the world, Cas and Sam, who are sitting beside him on the blanket. Cas is currently working his way through a huge chunk of watermelon, sticky hands holding resolutely onto the rind, while Sam rubs potato salad all over his face in some kind of aborted attempt at eating it. Dean is halfway through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, his face covered in almost the same amount of gunk as Sam’s.

“Okay, Sam, try it again,” Dean encourages, speaking through a mouthful of goop.

Sam pauses in his face painting, and looks up at his name. His face screws up in concentration, and with a great effort, he manages a pleased sounding, “Dean!”.

Dean is delighted enough that he drops his sandwich, which makes a small squelching sound when it hits the blanket, and punches a fist in the air.

“Mom!” he calls, whipping around to glance her way. “Mom! Sam said my name again!”

Mary tips up the brim of her hat long enough to smile encouragingly. “Good for him!” She says, before going back to her book.

“Sam,” Dean says again, to get his little brother’s attention once more, since Sam has moved on from potato salad to the remains of Dean’s sandwich, and is extremely occupied with the properties of grape jelly.

“Hey, Sam, try and say, ‘Castiel’,” Dean instructs, and Cas immediately perks up, coming up for air from his slice of watermelon, juice dripping down his chin.

Sam spreads another handful of jelly in the general area of his mouth before answering.

“Caaaaaaaa…” he tries, mouth having difficulty with the elusive ‘s’ sound. “Caaaaa….” He closes his eyes, like he’s thoroughly sick of not being able to speak, when he can so obviously _understand_ everyone. He huffs, and sticks out his bottom lip, chin quivering.

“Cas,” Dean prompts one more time, encouragingly. Cas is watching the proceedings with wide, eager eyes, silently willing Sam to succeed.

“Caaaaaaa…. ssss!” Sam manages to finally lisp out, tongue stuck between his teeth.

Dean and Cas look at each other, mouths open in twin shock.

“Go Sammy!” Dean crows, leaping forward to crush his brother against his chest. “Good job, Sammy!!”

Dean’s obviously rubbed off on him, because Cas even pulls Sam into a hug, and Sam seems thoroughly pleased by the entire proceedings.

“Didja hear that, mom?” Dean cries out, voice shrill and lilting. “Didja? Sammy said Cas’ name!”

Mary puts her finger in her book to mark her place, and glances over again.

“Uh oh,” she says dramatically, “Cas, that makes you an honorary Winchester now. Welcome to the family, hon.”

Cas looks at Dean like he just showed up at his front door with thirty pounds of ice cream.

“Did you hear that?” he asks, aghast. “I’m a Winchester now!”

Dean jumps up immediately, blanket gathering around his feet.

“We gotta make you a nametag so you don’t forget!”  he declares, and Cas, seemingly on board with the idea, follows suit.

“We should make a name tag for everyone!” he insists, eyes shining with excitement. Sam, who’s still busy smearing food on his face, doesn’t buy into the excitement.

“Mommy!” Dean calls, running over to where she’s sitting and gripping her forearm tightly, “Mom! Can me and Cas go back in the house and get some paper and crayons?”

“Go for it, sweetie,” Mary answers, patting Dean on the hand, both affectionately and because he’s gripping her really tightly. “But bring them back out to the porch, okay? I want to be able to see you two at all times.”

“Okay! Let’s go, Cas!” Dean grabs Cas by the hand, and the two of them rush off into the light blue house, porch creaking loud enough for even Mary to hear it.

By the end of the day, Cas heads home with a proud “Cas Winchester” name tag pinned to his t shirt, while Dean waves from the front door, his own name tag resting firmly on his own shirt. Mary has hers attached to her skirt, and Sam has somehow managed to get his stuck in his hair, cooing happily all the while.

***

Mary’s statement about Cas being an honorary Winchester turned out to be a much more accurate one than she had anticipated.

First grade passes, Dean and Cas learn, Sam grows, and Mary’s back aches a little bit more.

Second grade passes, Dean and Cas learn some more, Sam grows some more, and Mary’s back aches just a little bit more.

Third grade passes, much like first and second. The wheat in the field out back stays gold, their house stays light blue, and Cas stays a Winchester. Dean doesn’t become a Novak, not by a long shot, but nobody says anything about that.

Cas seems to spend more time at the Winchesters’ house than at his own, and Dean couldn’t be happier about it. Like Mrs. Mosley predicted all those years ago, Dean is an extremely perceptive boy, and some unconscious part of him realized, a long time ago, that Cas didn’t get a lot of hugs at home.  And for Dean, as someone who equates hugs with love and happiness, it doesn’t take a lot for his subconscious mind to work out that Cas isn’t getting much of either. He hugs Cas hello and goodbye, hugs him just because, hugs him when he thinks he needs to be hugged. When Mary christened Dean with the nickname, “Hug Monster”, she wasn’t doing so lightly.

The first day of fourth grade for Dean is also the first day of primary for Sam, and Dean walks into the kitchen first thing to find Mary crying over the sink, bathed in the pale light of morning.

“… Mom?” Dean asks, hesitant.

Mary spins around, hand over her heart. Immediately she’s wiping her eyes, blinking rapidly.

“Hey, sweetie!” she greets, laughing lightly, trying to brush it off. “You scared me.”

Dean assesses the situation, feels it out to the best of his nine year old ability.

“Are you okay?” he asks, taking a step forward, linoleum cold on his bare feet.

Mary just _looks_ at Dean for a moment, like she’s trying to figure something out. And then she laughs- a real laugh, this time- and beckons Dean forward, who automatically follows her instruction.

She pulls him into a hug tight enough to cut off his air, and Dean doesn’t know why she’s so sad, but he knows that when he hugs her, it makes her a little less so, so he hugs back with everything he has to offer. They stay like that for a couple minutes, and a sleepy Sam obviously walked into the kitchen at one point, because there’s a delighted shriek of, “group hug!?” and then Dean feels one of Sam’s chubby little arms sling around his waist.

“Group hug!” Mary repeats, moving an arm to include Sam. “Who said you were invited, mister?” she teases, kissing the top of his head.

“I did!” Sam declares, and tightens his hold.

Mary chuckles, and looks at Sam like he hung the moon last night.

“Are you ready for your first day of school, baby?”

Sam’s face lights up like a Christmas tree as he shouts, “Am I ever! I love school! I wanna learn things just like Dean!”

“But you’ll never be as smart as me!” Dean says, “Cause I’m the big brother and big brothers are the smartest.”

Sam sticks his tongue out at Dean, who blows a raspberry back at Sam. Mary rolls her eyes.

“My big, _grown up_ boys,” she says pointedly, with only a little annoyance and a lot of affection.

***

Dean’s first day of grade four is going great until it’s not.

He rides the bus with Cas just like he does every day, and sits next to Cas just like he does every day. They talk about what they think the year will be like, and joke and whisper and giggle together just like they always do.

It’s when they get to the front doors of the school and look at the class lists that Dean’s heart drops into his shoes.

He and Cas are in _different classes_.

Dean doesn’t know what to do. He and Cas have been in the same class since primary, and all of a sudden they’re not. They won’t be able to choose the same books to read at silent reading time, they won’t be able to share snacks, and they won’t be able to _see_ each other. Dean’s so used to being in the same room as Cas, and sharing the same things as Cas, that the disconnect in his brain at the moment is the only thing keeping him from crying.

As it is, his eyes are itchy and misty, and he leans against the old brick of the school, ignoring how it scrapes against his bare arms. Kids are running past him, screaming and playing while they wait for the first bell of the year to ring, but all Dean can do is plop down on the asphalt, chin in hands and eyes swimming in tears.

He’s sniffling when Cas finally finds him, head cocked in confusion.

“Why are you crying?” Cas asks, tact never a trait he picked up in the formative years.

Dean rubs at his eyes furiously before bothering to answer. “We’re not in the same class.”

Cas’ mouth turns down at the corners and a crease appears between his brows. He settles himself down beside Dean, leaning his head against the wall.

“I know,” he says, obviously just as unhappy about the news as Dean. He picks at a spot on his jeans, and Dean heaves a world weary sigh.

“This sucks.” He declares, crossing his arms in the gesture of universal defiance.

“I know,” Cas repeats sadly. “We still have recess, at least.”

Dean nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess.”

The bell rings, sounding a lot harsher than Dean remembers. Neither of them move for a moment. Neither of them wants to move.

It’s a warm September morning, and the sky is a cheerful light azure. Fluffy clouds that look like giant cotton balls dot the sky and make interesting shapes, depending on how you look at them.

“We have to go inside now,” Cas says, more out of duty than any actual desire to leave Dean’s side.

Dean nods, squints into the sun. “I know.”

They sit in silence for another moment, before Cas finally stands up. Dean follows suit, and soon enough they’re trooping into the building. Once they get to the hallway where they each go their separate ways, Dean feels absolutely miserable.

“Let’s meet at recess, okay?” he says, trying to ignore his itchy eyes for the moment.

Cas nods.

“Okay.”

Dean’s never had to deal with this before. Cas is _always_ there. Even in grade two when they sat across the room from each other, Cas was _there_. Now he won’t be, and Dean doesn’t know what that _means_.

Dean doesn’t hug near as much as he did when he was younger, but he still hugs Cas more than Cas gets hugged at home. And today especially, he’s upset enough that he pulls Cas in and wraps his arms around him for a brief moment before muttering a quick goodbye and heading to his first class without his best friend.

He hears Cas shuffle off down the hallway the other way, and feels his stomach drop out. Even though it isn’t Cas’ fault, he still can’t shake that feeling of abandonment. It sits on his back like a particularly heavy knapsack.

Dean slips into his class just a couple seconds after the final bell rings, and quickly finds the desk with his name tag on it. He looks around at his fellow classmates- tries to ignore the pang in his gut when he finally confirms Cas’ face isn’t among them- and feels completely lost when he realizes he knows many of them, but doesn’t actually _know_ them. Even Jo, who he’s known since they were in diapers, isn’t in this class, but in Cas’.

He sneaks a glance at the girl sitting next to him. She has fiery red hair, and is wearing a t-shirt that has a boy with glasses and a funny shaped scar on his head on it. Dean’s curious, despite himself.

“Who’s on your shirt?” He asks, and the girl turns to him, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“Are you joking?” She asks, scandalized.

“Uh… no?” Dean’s eye catches her name tag, and it reads “Charlie.”

“That’s Harry Potter,” Charlie says, like it’s the most important name in the universe. She turns fully in her chair to face Dean now, who suddenly feels like the subject of an interrogation.

“Who’s Harry Potter?” Dean asks, feeling like he’s digging himself into a hole.

If possible, Charlie’s eyes widen even further, and then narrow dangerously quickly.

“Only the coolest books _ever_ ,” she declares, and then she’s off, explaining plot and characters with words like _Voldemort_ , _muggles_ , _Quidditch_ , and _Weasley_ , that have Dean completely confused, but also extremely interested. She talks for a long time about someone named Hermione.

She talks for the entire morning, stopping only when the teacher is talking and has given them a very pointed look. It’s a continuous narration, and every time they get interrupted, Charlie just picks up exactly where she left off, leaving Dean scrambling to keep up.

By the time recess rolls around, they’re walking out the doors, and Charlie is in the middle of saying how it feels like next July is a million years away, when Dean sees Cas waiting by the wall, hands in his pockets. Oblivious, Charlie keeps talking, but Dean makes a beeline for Cas, who hasn’t seen him yet.

“Cas!” he yells, running up to him. Cas, who is more serious than any nine year old has any right to be, cracks a smile bright enough to light the night sky  when he catches sight of Dean. Charlie, bemused, is standing beside Dean and peering at Cas with curious eyes.

“How’s your class?” Cas asks, briefly making eye contact with Charlie.

Dean shrugs. “It was okay. I met Charlie and she hasn’t stopped talking about something called _Harry Potter_ since.”

“Who’s Harry Potter?” Cas asks, bemused.

There’s the sound of a sharp inhale, and then Cas finds himself being steered towards the bench by an extremely offended Charlie.

“You’re about to find out, grasshopper,” she declares, as Dean follows, unable to contain his grin.

***

Charlie is great, and recess is great, but it’s with an acute sense of loss that Dean and Cas part ways again after Cas’ _Harry Potter_ fifteen minute education, with a promise from Charlie that they all watch the movies together.

The rest of the day passes without incident, and after Dean says bye to Cas at the bus stop, with plans made to meet at the tractor later, his stomach squirms uncomfortably as he walks home, stirring up more vicious dust clouds than usual with his shoes.

He opens the front door, and Mary is there almost immediately, smiling sunnily.

“Hi, honey! How was your first day?” she asks, as Dean toes off his sneakers.

Dean’s not sure what it is. Maybe it’s the way Mary is so excited for him, or maybe it’s just because she’s his mom, but as soon as she asks that, Dean feels the tears well up and spill over before he can even register it’s happening.

Mary is in front of him in seconds, pulling off his backpack and hugging him to her chest.

“Baby, what happened? What’s wrong?” She asks frantically, struggling to wipe the continuous tears from Dean’s cheeks.

The tears are too fresh for Dean to speak just yet, and he just hugs Mary tighter, holding fistfuls of her shirt. He rubs his eyes against her shoulder, sniffling loudly, trembling.

Once he’s cried himself out, and his shoulders have stopped shaking, he hiccoughs and finally manages to speak.

“Cas is in a different class,” he whispers, wiping his eyes furiously.

Mary’s eyes, already liquid with sympathy, become even more understanding.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” she says, bringing him back in for a hug and rubbing calming hands up and down his back.

Dean swallows hard. “I mean, I met a girl named Charlie who told me about _Harry Potter_ and it was okay, but then I just kept remembering that Cas wasn’t there too, and it really…” Dean stops, searches for the right word. “It really _sucks_.” He decides on.

Mary murmurs a quiet rebuke, but says nothing else. She straightens up, holds onto Dean’s hand.

“How about some cocoa?” She asks, leading Dean to the table and making sure he’s sitting before turning away to fuss with the stove.

“Me n’ Cas are gonna meet at the tractor to hang out,” Dean says, in some sort of protest.

“That’s fine,” Mary agrees, stirring some powder into a milk filled mug. “Have a sip, at least. Then you can go.”

She puts it in the microwave for a couple minutes, and sits across from Dean.

“You know you and Cas are still best friends, right? Being in a different class doesn’t change that.”

“I know,” Dean says, voice still rough from crying.

“And you’re still neighbours, right?”

Dean doesn’t answer.

“ _Right_?” Mary prompts.

“Right,” Dean mumbles, scratching a fingernail on the table.

“You’ll be okay, sweetie.” Mary says quietly.

They sit in silence until the microwave beeps, and Mary hands Dean his hot chocolate.

Once Dean has taken a sip, Mary sits down again.

“Now,” she says, in a much cheerier tone, “How about you tell me about _Harry Potter_?”

***

Dean and Cas hang out for hours, even after Dean is a little late to the tractor, because he got caught up telling Mary everything Charlie had told him this morning. Cas, whose mother doesn’t ask about things like _Harry Potter_ , and doesn’t make things like hot chocolate, was at the tractor much earlier than Dean.

It’s close to dark now, and Dean and Cas are back at the tractor, Dean in the cab and Cas on the back wheel, after having spent the last hour catching fireflies.

Cas is holding the jar, the light from the fireflies casting his face in a muted, warm glow. Dean grins, watching closely through the broken window.

“They’re so pretty,” Cas remarks, holding up the jar and looking at it from another angle.

 Dean nods.

“I wish _my_ butt would glow,” he comments, and Cas’ shoulders shake with laughter.

Dean decides he doesn’t want to sit in the cab anymore, and cautiously climbs out over the shards of glass still stuck in the window. Mary would kill him if she saw what he was doing, and Cas’ eyes are nervous as he watches Dean.

Dean makes it out just fine, save a minor rip in his sleeve. Mary taught him to repair rips like that years ago, and he can sew it up no problem.

He plops himself down next to Cas, and gently taps the jar.

“Cool.” He says.  “I bet if Sam was still a baby, we could get him to eat one.”

“I wonder if we could see it light up in his stomach,” Cas muses.

Dean giggles, picturing the little glowing ball of light flying around inside of his brother.

They both continue to poke at the jar, enthralled with the fireflies. A couple minutes later, Dean realizes it’s completely dark out now.

“Oh, crap,” he says, and slides off the tire immediately. “I told my mom I’d be home before it got dark.”

Cas slides off the tire as well, mindful of the jar in his hands.

“I guess we better let these guys go, then,” he says, indicating the fireflies.

Dean nods. “I guess.”

Cas unscrews the lid, gives the side a light tap, and the fireflies stream out into the darkness, lighting up the night like stars going in every direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update should be on Sunday, hopefully.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important note: a slur is used in this chapter, though not by either Dean or Cas.

Things get easier, not being in the same class as Cas. Despite his every intention not to, Dean makes new friends. Charlie, especially, he takes a shine to. She teaches him about _Harry Potter_ , and Dean teaches her about _Star Wars_ , which she absolutely loves.

Every recess, Dean hangs out with Cas, or Cas and Jo. Sometimes, Charlie joins them. They play grounders, _Star Wars_ , and they even manage to get Jo to play _Harry Potter_ with them sometimes. Mary had bought Dean the first book after he told her about it, and he and Cas often read it together, which often leads to long discussions with Charlie on certain parts and favorite characters. Charlie still vehemently loves Hermione the most, but Dean and Cas are more conflicted, though Cas still laughs every time someone brings up Dumbledore and earwax.

The months fly by, and Dean becomes accustomed to not seeing Cas in his class, though they still spend almost all of their free time at home together. They do homework together, watch movies, and sometimes, especially after a particularly intense game of _Star Wars_ , often crash on Dean’s bed, limbs in a tangle of pre-teen gawkiness.

It’s mid-December, only a couple of days before school is out for Christmas vacation, and Dean, Cas, and Jo are standing huddled around a pole at the end of Dean and Cas’ street, breath puffing out of them in little clouds.

“Do it,” Jo says, eyes alight with mischief.

“Don’t,” Cas advises, the tip of his nose red. His ears are hidden beneath a ridiculously fluffy hat.

Jo narrows her eyes at Cas.

“Don’t be a baby, Cas. _Do it_ , Dean!”

Dean touches the frozen pole, imagines sticking his tongue to it.

“Dean.” Cas says, voice laced with you-are-getting-into-something-and-I-will-not-help-you-out-of-it.

“C’mon, Dean, don’t be a chicken,” Jo eggs him on.

“This is a bad idea,” Cas says seriously, like they’re talking about the stock exchange in October.

“Do it, chicken,” Jo’s personal philosophy of insults is a very environmentally friendly one; that is, she likes to recycle them often.

“Both of you shut up,” Dean says, and sticks his tongue to the pole.

Jo yells in triumph, and Cas slaps a hand over his eyes, exasperated.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he says.

“ith not thath bath,” Dean says, speaking around his tongue, as Jo doubles over with laughter.

And it’s not that bad, until Dean tries to unstick his tongue.

“Um,” he says, as he moves his head back, and the tongue refuses to follow suit.

“Oh my god,” Jo’s laughter starts up again. “Are you stuck?!” she chokes out in between laughs. At Dean’s nod, she loses it completely. Even Cas seems to be holding back a smile at Dean’s misfortune.

“Cath,” Dean jumbles out, “Lil hulp here?”

The smugness is rolling off Cas in waves as he says, “I _told_ you so,” with enough relish to drown a hamburger.

“Thut up, Cath,”

***

It’s that spring, a warm, cheerful day, that Dean hears the word for the first time.

He’s in the middle of yet another light sabre battle with Cas at recess, that somehow ends in Cas being petulant and Dean pulling him into a hug to apologize for cheating at their mental list of rules they’ve acquired over many years and many battles.

There’s two older boys that Dean doesn’t know, has never spoken to in his life, that walk by while Dean and Cas are in mid-hug. No one else is around, so Dean knows the word is directed at him and Cas. 

“ _Fags_!” calls one of the boys, the portly, rotund one. His friend, all skinny limbs and pointy elbows, guffaws like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Confused, Dean breaks his hold on Cas and watches the boys walk away.

“What’s a fag?” He asks, scratching his head.

Cas shrugs without animosity. He’s rarely still mad at Dean after he hugs him.

“It didn’t sound very nice.” He says contemplatively, searching for the word somewhere in his memory bank, and coming up with nothing.

Dean shrugs.

“Whatever. Want to battle again? I promise I won’t cheat this time.”

***

Dean still doesn’t know what the word means, but it’s been sitting at the back of his mind all day, niggling at him. There was something about the way the boys said it. The kind of word that people say with narrowed, mean eyes and hard mouths. Dean has never met these boys before. He doesn’t know their names, or their grade, or anything about them. And yet they yelled something at him and Cas, something, by the way they were laughing, that was supposed to hurt his feelings.

Dean’s in the middle of a glass of milk, Mary sitting beside him on the couch, reading. Her loose hair falls softly around her face, and she seems perfectly content, brow smooth and mouth curved up in a slight smile.

Dean finishes his last gulp of milk, and brings his glass into the kitchen, puts it in the sink. He comes back out into the living and stands in front of Mary.

“Mom,” he says, “What’s a fag?”

Every strain of bliss evaporates from Mary’s face as she snaps her head up, shocked. Her mouth falls half-open for a moment, and even her hair seems to shrivel up at the question.

“Dean,” she says, like the breath has been punched out of her.

Her shock evaporates almost right away though, gives way to her crumpled mouth and downcast eyes. There’s something about her posture, the slump of her shoulders, that speaks of resignation. She’s been expecting this conversation. Maybe not so soon, but she figured someday.

“Dean,” she says again, more composed. She pats the seat beside her, and Dean climbs up onto the old, worn couch with stuffing sticking out of the sides. He plucks at a stray thread as Mary collects her thoughts.

“Tell me what happened,” she says, voice wavering.

Dean shrugs. “Me ‘n’ Cas were playing _Star Wars_ , and I cheated, and Cas got mad. So I hugged him, and then these two older boys yelled that word at us.”

Dean notices that Mary’s hands are shaking ever so slightly in her lap. Instinctively, he reaches over and grabs one of them. Mary goes extremely still, and then exhales all at once, like air being let out of a balloon. She practically drapes herself over Dean, pulling him into a hug that makes him feel like his bones are grinding together. Bewildered, he hugs her back.

“The first thing you need to understand, Dean,” Mary says once she’s let go of Dean, just holding onto his hand, “is that there are some people in this world who are not very nice.”

“I know,” Dean says darkly. He’s seen how some of the other children treat each other.

“The second thing you need to understand, is that all kinds of people can love each other.”

Dean nods, and Mary continues, rubbing circles onto the back of his hand.

“And when I say that, I mean that some boys like other boys like how some boys like girls. You know how in _Star Wars_ , Han Solo and Princess Leia love each other? Well, some boys love other boys like that, and some girls love other girls like that.”

“Or like Bert and Ernie!” Dean exclaims, obviously excited now that he understands what Mary’s getting at. “They love each other a lot, even though they annoy each other.”

That startles a laugh out of Mary, and she squeezes his hand encouragingly.

“Yes, hun, exactly like Bert and Ernie.”

Dean thinks on this information for a moment, face scrunched up.

“I love Cas,” Dean says with the kind of finality reserved for people much older than him. “Just like Bert loves Ernie.”

Mary’s face is so kind, and soft, and every kind of gentle when she responds, “I know you do, baby.”

And she doesn’t say how sorry she is. She doesn’t say how much harder Dean’s life is going to be because he loves fiercely and without condition. She doesn’t say that he seems to feel so much more than a child ever should, and she most definitely doesn’t say how much it scares her, just how very willing Dean is to love.

All she can say- and it feels like such a laughable irony- is, “I love you, Dean Winchester. So much.”  

Again, Dean feels like he’s lost track of the conversation, but he replies, like he’ll always reply, “I love you too, mom.”

“That word that those boys used today?” Mary’s tone has changed, and anger simmers under the surface, dangerous and hot. “That’s a word that mean people use to talk about boys who love boys, and it’s a word that I never want to hear you say. Ever.”

Dean nods, solemn.

“I won’t,” he promises. After a moment, he adds, “Why would people be mean to boys who like boys, anyways?”

Once again, Mary’s face shifts. This time, it’s reverent, and maybe a little in awe of her oldest son.

“Because not everyone is like you.”

***

Dean never uses the word, though he does tell Cas what it means.

It’s a Saturday night, and Cas is allowed to stay over at Dean’s tonight. It’s their first sleepover, and Dean is beyond excited.

“Can I cook Cas breakfast tomorrow?” Dean practically begs Mary as she folds laundry, tugging on her sweater sleeve.

“As long as you don’t burn the house down,” she responds lightly, folding one of Sam’s pairs of jeans.

“Can we make French toast?”

“As long as it’s French enough.”

“ _Mom_.”

“Yes, Dean, you can make French toast.” She starts sorting the folded laundry into piles; hers, Dean’s, Sam’s. “Have you ever thought to ask Cas what he would want? He _is_ the guest.”

“Cas loves French toast. It’s his favorite.” Dean asserts. He almost knows his best friend’s tastes better than his own. “Besides, Cas’ mom doesn’t make French toast. They have cereal for breakfast, and not even the good kind.”

Something dark crosses Mary’s face, but she schools it quickly.

“I’m sure Cas will love it,” is all she says.

“Thanks, mom!” Dean cries, and kisses her cheek before practically skipping away.

He’s jittery with excitement for the rest of the night, even cleans his room so he has something to do with his hands.  He’s singing along to one of his dad’s old cassette tapes, playing air guitar ferociously on his freshly made bed, when he hears the doorbell ring. He launches himself off the bed, yells, “I’ll get it!” loudly enough to be heard over the music, and sprints to the door. He’s wearing socks, and the floor is laminate, so Cas’ first memory of his pilot sleepover with Dean is hearing a loud crash on the other side of the door.

Dean picks himself up off the floor, dusts himself off dramatically even though no one is around to see, and yanks open the door.

Cas is standing on the front step, blue eyes wide and open. Under one hand, he has a small duffel bag. Dean had told him not to bother bringing a pillow. (“We’ve got lots, dude.”)

“Did you just run into the door?” Cas asks, walking inside as Dean steps aside.

“No.” Dean lies.

Cas toes off his shoes, and carefully puts them on the mat beside the coat rack. He’s always been ridiculously polite at Dean’s house.  He has his boisterous moments, but Mary still has to remind him to relax at least once a week.

He eyes Dean, can see when Dean is lying, a product of spending the better part of the last five years with him.

“I’m wearing socks,” is Dean’s only defense. “And the floors are slippery. Mom washed them today.”

Cas maneuvers the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder, glances at the floor as if to verify Dean’s story. Then, without warning, he rushes past Dean, and somehow manages to slide all the way to the carpet of the living room on the other side of the kitchen.

Dean’s pretty sure he just felt his jaw hit the floor. “Holy crap!”

Cas smiles one of his typically enigmatic smiles, and meanders down the hall to drop his stuff in Dean’s room.

Dean stays behind for a moment to close to door. He looks down at his socked feet, and then at the spot where Cas ended his slide. He opens the front door again, and steps outside a couple steps, for a better running start. He blasts into the kitchen, puts every single atom into sliding himself across the kitchen floor.

Instead, he stumbles about a third of the way into the slide, and runs into the table, knocking over a chair in the process. For the second time in five minutes, he pulls himself off the floor.

Forgoing the rest of the slide, Dean just runs down the hall, hollering on the way, “What the _heck_ , Cas!? How’d you do that?”

He knows what they’re doing for the rest of the night.

***

Once Dean’s bruised and battered enough that even he thinks it’s time to call it quits, (And also because Mary kicks them out of the kitchen, saying she can’t stand the sound of ten year old boy falling for one more second) they head to Dean’s room.

“Remember those two guys who yelled at us the other day?” Dean asks conversationally, as Cas roots through his things.

“Yeah.” Cas examines each of Dean’s dad’s cassette tapes thoroughly, even though he’s already looked at them a million times, not to mention the fact that Dean has forced Cas to listen them a million and one times.

“My mom told me what the word meant.” Dean says, trying to do a handstand on his bed, using the wall for support.

“What does it mean?” Cas asks, as he gazes at one of the many AC/DC tapes.

“It’s a mean word for two guys who love each other.”  Dean’s about halfway to a teddy bear stand, face contorted in concentration. His cheeks are turning red with the effort.

“Oh.” Cas, ever aloof, seems disinterested.

“My mom told me not to use it,” Dean continues, falling back onto the bed with a bounce. He figures he’ll try it another time.

“Okay,” Cas answers, question-free. He’s ridiculously low maintenance like that.

“Wanna play gamecube?” Dean asks, changing the topic as abruptly as only a ten year old can get away with, but also because topics like a boy loving a boy aren’t anything odd in Dean’s world.

Cas gently places the cassette he’s been looking at back into the box.

“I think I like your music,” he says, in place of answering Dean’s question.

Dean looks at him for a moment. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell when Cas is joking. This time, though, Dean doesn’t think he is.

“I thought you hated my music?” He says, without accusing.

 Cas shrugs.

“It was my dad’s,” Dean says, quietly. He’s old enough by now to know that he misses his dad. Gone are the days where he could talk about his dad being dead with no second thoughts whatsoever.

“Maybe that’s why I like them,” Cas admits, voice just as quiet. It’s a strange thing, for two ten year olds to be discussing dead (or deadbeat) dads, like real adults. Dean feels weirdly old, displaced. “My dad didn’t leave anything for me.”

Dean is quiet for a moment. He’s not old enough to know what to say to something like that. But he knows what to _do_.

He walks over to the box beside Cas, and plops down next to it. He pushes the box in front of Cas.

“You can have one,” he offers, tipping it towards Cas. The clacking of the tapes as they topple over one another is strangely poignant.

Their eyes meet, and Dean shakes the box a little.

“Take one,” he insists.

Hesitantly, reverently, Cas goes through each of the tapes. He weighs each in his hand, like he’s weighing the memories associated with them. Dean watches silently, glad he can do something for Cas. Glad they can share something.

Eventually, Cas picks up a much battered cassette. Obviously, it’s been played many times.

“I think I want this one,” he decides quietly, staring at the blocky handwriting of John Winchester. It’s _Houses of the Holy_. “I really like _The Rain Song_ ,” he admits.

Dean grins. There’s a lot of good music in that box, and Cas chose some of the best.

“Awesome.” Dean says, and pushes it even further into Cas’ arms, wants to watch Cas bundle it up and take care of it, just like Dean knows he would.

Cas stares at the tape in his arms like it holds all the answers to the universe inside.

“Thanks,” he says, but it means so much more than that. He just doesn’t know how to vocalize it. Doesn’t know how to explain what it feels like to get a present from a dad, even if it’s not the dad who’s doing the giving.

Dean, who hoards John’s things like they’re made of gold, understands. Because he remembers that first day Mary pulled out of the box of cassettes, watery eyes and all, and explained to him just how much they meant to John. He remembers the thrill of wiping dust off old, plastic covers. Remembers how he didn’t know what it was like to have a dad, but _this_ is what it must feel like.

He remembers, knows exactly what it is Cas can’t say. He knows what it feels like to get a present from a dad, even if it’s not the dad who’s doing the giving.


	6. Chapter 6

Life goes on. Dean and Cas grow some more. Sam grows like a weed. The rest of grade four passes, and Dean and Cas get used to not being in the same class anymore. Then grade five happens, and they’re in the same class again, and they forgot how they ever existed otherwise.

In grade five, Dean likes a girl. He likes her a lot. Her name is Sophie Cooper, and she has brown hair and brown eyes, with freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose.

The presence of her own freckles doesn’t stop her from teasing Dean about his, though. And every time she does, Dean blushes like a cherry, and she giggles, eyes twinkling.

The thing about Sophie is that she never teases to be mean. She teases to endear. (Though she also later tells Dean that she teases him because she thinks he’s cute when he blushes.)

One day after school, Sophie kisses Dean on the lips behind the trash cans where no one can see them.  It smells like day old milk and moldy peanut butter, but Dean doesn’t notice any of that. All he notices is the chaste peck that Sophie plants on him, lips soft and kind against his. His face burns from his chin all the way to the tips of his ears, and Sophie giggles again, and that’s when she tells him that he’s cute when he blushes. If anything, that makes him blush more.

It’s his first kiss, and he describes it to Cas in the most painstakingly detailed way possible.

Cas is confused at first.

“Why would you kiss her?” he asks, squinting in distaste, as if the thought of touching another person like that makes him feel incredibly dirty.

Dean, still kind of over the moon, shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to describe it.

“I _like_ her,” he says finally, inadequately. And yet there’s really nothing else he could have said.

Cas obviously agrees about the inadequacy.

“You like _me_ ,” he states in a no-nonsense kind of way, as if Dean liking Sophie like that is just as ridiculous as Dean liking Cas like _that_. But it also serves as a reminder. A subconscious plea of, _but you’re_ my _friend first, right_?

Dean flounders for a moment, settles on an eloquent, “Yeah, but-” and then becomes quiet again.

It’s been their own little bubble for so long, and suddenly, someone is popping it. Dean and Cas is suddenly going to become Dean and Cas, and Sophie.

But Dean doesn’t want to focus on the little nudge of loss that sits hard in his stomach. He wants to think of the gain, thinks of Sophie laughing and Sophie kissing him behind the dumpsters.

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean pleads, “Sophie is really cool, I swear.”

Cas sniffs haughtily, but concedes.

It’s not the victory Dean was hoping for, but he still grins at the thought of Sophie and Cas getting along.

***

Two weeks later, Dean and Sophie break up. For no particular reason, although there was a lot of fifth grade politics involved, and quite a lot more he said she said. Such is the nature of relationships in elementary school. After a couple days cooling off period, Sophie and Dean are cordial again, and things get back to normal.

Cas never had the chance to really talk to Sophie, and he doesn’t exactly regret it.

***

Dean’s fling with Sophie opens up an entirely new world for him. As fifth grade rolls into sixth, he realizes that girls like his animated personality, like how his smile flashes, and like how his jokes are funny.

Mary strongly cautions Dean on treating the girls properly, and Dean takes the advice seriously. He doesn’t date anyone (or the elementary equivalent, anyways), but he certainly learns a thing or two about being charming during those months.

Cas remains at his side the whole time, stoic. Then again, Cas is always stoic.

Dean isn’t the only one who gets admiring glances, however. Blue eyed and dark haired Cas gets his fair share of looks as well.

The only difference is that while Dean welcomes it, Cas is one part indifferent and two parts oblivious. They play the “who do you like” game, and Cas seems slightly baffled by it the entire time, never having anything to add. Dean has a new girl to name every week.

Their lives aren’t dominated by girls, however. Far from it. Cas absorbs books at a frankly frightening rate, reading the newest  (and last) _Harry Potter_ book over the summer even faster than Charlie, who squawks indignantly at him over the phone when he calls to tell her. Dean’s not far behind Charlie, and often wonders out loud at how much brain power Cas must have hidden away beneath that hard head of his to read things so fast. He also threatens to kick Cas’ ass if he spoils the ending.

Dean, besides the reading he does, starts to tinker with things. He starts small; building paper airplanes, spit balls aimed at the side of the chicken coop. Soon enough though, he finds he has a knack for it. Finds himself opening things up to see how they work, and pulling them apart and putting them back together again. He fixes Sam’s bike, figures out how to rewire the television after an unfortunate incident that involves Cas and a couple of rolling pins.

Suffice to say, once junior high school rolls around, Dean and Cas have somewhat found their respective niches. In the typically overenthusiastic way of schools welcoming new grades, there’s about a million clubs they’re encouraged to join, Dean drifting towards robotics and Cas finding a place for himself in the book club.

With junior high comes new classmates, new teachers, and more classes. Which, unfortunately for Dean and Cas, means they’re separated once more.

But they promise, sitting on the tractor the night after the first day of school, that it won’t change anything.

“Dude,” Dean says, grinning to hide the fear he’s holding, because somewhere along the line he was taught that it was easier to smile than most anything else, “we’re like, adults now.”

Cas faces Dean on the tire that used to be so much bigger, and nods solemnly.

“But, y’know, we’re still best friends,” Dean tries to state it like a fact, does his absolute best not to let his voice shake. Because he watches enough television to know, and reads enough books to know, that sometimes these things don’t work out.

Cas cocks his head.

“Yes,” he says slowly, “yes, we are.”

“We’ve been friends for almost seven years, dude,” Dean laughs, “that’s a long time. Almost as long as Sammy’s been alive.”

Cas grins, small, at that.

“It’s been a long time,” he agrees.

Dean chews his bottom lip, tries not to show that his stomach is doing flips.

“We’re still gonna be friends through junior high, right Cas?” Dean asks, voice wavering.

Cas narrows his eyes, like he tastes something suspicious in the air.

“Yes…” he trails off, obviously expecting this to amount to something.

Dean scratches the back of his neck, tries to play it off.

“Well. Good.”

Cas nods slowly.

“Yeah. Good.”

***

Whether it was because of that short conversation, or because it’s inevitable as the wind whispers through the wheat fields in the summer, things change.

***

Dean’s not really sure how it happened. Because him and Cas are still best friends, but they aren’t _best_ friends.

It’s like their world expanded so quickly, so exponentially, that it’s impossible to retain any sort of exclusive intimacy with each other. There’s so many new people to talk to, so many new lives to keep up with, that Dean finds himself talking about the exact same thing, but to different people, because that’s how socializing works in junior high. There’s no room for imaginary light sabre fights anymore, but suddenly a lot more room for loitering outside the local convenience store.

The first thing that really sets off the warning bells in Dean’s head is the day Cas comes over and announces that he met a girl in his social studies. Or rather, _she_ met _him_. By copying his answers during one of their tests.

“Her name is Meg,” Cas explains, lying the wrong way on Dean’s bed, head dropping off the foot of it. “She smokes cigarettes and calls me Clarence.”

“You’re not gonna smoke with her, are you, Cas?”

Cas shrugs, and Dean makes a disgusted noise.

“Smoking is _gross_ ,” he says, revolted, wrinkling up his nose.

Cas doesn’t answer, just sits up and starts playing with a loose thread in Dean’s bedspread.

“Do you _like_ her?” Dean asks, because as shocked as he is, his curiosity is getting the better of him.

“I dunno,” Cas answers, voice casual like he doesn’t really care enough to think about it.

“Dude, this is _important_ ,” Dean stresses, “Like, you’ve never liked someone before. Do you like _her_?”

“What does liking someone feel like?” Cas asks, deadpan.

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Does your stomach feel funny around her? Do you wanna, like, be around her all the time?”

“I’m around _you_ all the time.”

“Do you wanna be around _her_ all the time, though?” Dean presses, completely ignoring Cas’ typical obtrusiveness.

“No,” Cas decides readily. “But I think we’re going to start hanging out.”

Even though this girl already makes Dean’s skin crawl, he’s happy Cas kind of found a girl he likes.

He ignores the way it feels like another wall has just plunged down between him and Cas.

***

In January of grade seven, two days before his birthday, Dean thinks he falls in love.

There’s a girl named Cassie in his English class, and she always makes him feel stupid when he talks to her. But somehow, he walks away from their conversations feeling smarter.

Dean walks around in a dopey haze for about two weeks, and even walks into a doorframe because he’s too busy staring at the back of her head in English.

Dean doesn’t tell Cas about Cassie until after she’s kissed him in the middle of an argument about… something. Dean doesn’t really remember all the specifics.

He doesn’t mean to keep it from Cas. In fact, all he ever wants to do is sing about the fact that he has a girlfriend who is extremely smart and amazing and as loud as himself. He loves to hold Cassie’s hand, thread their fingers together. He thinks kissing her is the most amazing thing ever.

When Dean finally tells Cas, Cas just stares at him. Had he been the type, Cas’ eyebrows would have skyrocketed into his hairline. As it is, though, he just stares at Dean.

“You’re in love?” he blanches, blinking rapidly, like it’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard and then some. 

“Yeah,” Dean breathes out, a starstruck exhale.

Cas seems torn between bafflement and intrigued at both the idea of falling in love, and the immense amount of teasing he can now unleash upon Dean.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Dean says, like he still can’t believe it himself. “She’s my girlfriend,” he repeats, grinning. It seems more real now that he’s told Cas, more concrete.

To Dean, Cassie hangs the moon in the sky every night. He practically worships the ground she walks on

Two weeks after they start dating, Dean tells Cassie he loves her.

Two weeks after they start dating, Cassie doesn’t have an answer for Dean.

And that’s that.

Ironically, the period after Dean and Cassie break up is one of the most solid times in his and Cas’ friendship. Cas ribbed him well enough when him and Cassie were together, but now that it’s over, Cas instinctively hangs around a lot more. Though to be fair, it never occurs to Dean that Cas may have just missed him a lot during his trysts with Cassie, and is trying to make up for lost time as well as helping him through the break up.

They don’t really talk about it, but they play video games and sit under the stars at night in silence, and that’s more comfortable than talking, usually.

Dean’s never dealt with a broken heart, and with an empathetic pat on the cheek, Mary tells him that it probably won’t be his last. He walks around like he’s been split in two, and can’t help the misery that engulfs him when he sees Cassie talking and laughing with her friends, like it never mattered to her at all.

Cas-tactless as always-reminds Dean curtly that he doesn’t talk to her anymore, so he doesn’t know the whole story. Dean just nods morosely and shuffles off in the opposite direction.

Mary tells him, time and time again, that nothing is going to help Dean get over it but the passing of the days, weeks, and months. He doesn’t believe her. He refuses to believe something that hurts so much can just _go away_.

And yet it does. Minus an ache here or a pain there, Dean moves on. The seasons change, summer comes with golden wheat and bicycle rides through corn fields that end with Dean and Cas getting lost for hours on end, eating dirty corn just because it’s there, Cas riding an old rusty junker that Dean managed to fix up, Dean on only a slightly less rusty one. Jo hangs around some that summer as well, often beating them in arm wrestling and video games. Even when it’s two on one.

Even though it’s not quite the same as it used to be, it’s good. It’s really good.

And then on the first day of eighth grade, Dean doesn’t see Cas at the bus stop in the morning. When he gets to school, he finds out why.

Cas and Meg are smoking behind the dumpsters, Cas laughing at something Meg said in a way Dean’s never heard Cas laugh before.

And it hits him, once again, harder than it has in a long time, the exact reason why things aren’t the same anymore. Because Cas smokes cigarettes and he doesn’t. Because Cas associates with people like Meg, and he doesn’t. Because Cas is bad, in the way parents warn their kids to stay away from other kids who will be a bad influence.

In that moment, watching tussle haired Cas and leather jacketed Meg blow smoke rings from perfectly formed o-shaped lips (Cas is obviously a veteran), Dean wants to laugh. A cold, heartless, empty laugh, right in Cas’ face. Because Cas doesn’t know what love is. Cas doesn’t know what it feels like to break, to enjoy, to savor. He doesn’t _know_.

And yet there he is, _laughing._ With Meg.

It’s some sort of mixture of betrayal and bitter nostalgia that Dean stomps over rather than walking on by, feigning obliviousness.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snaps at Cas, who immediately stops laughing and surveys Dean with an apathetic stare, only slightly tinged by shock.

“Dean,” he says, voice raspy with smoke.

“Hey, Deano,” Meg chips in, unbothered by his obvious current state of mind. She takes another puff on her cigarette.

Dean doesn’t even look at her.

“Cas, what are you _doing_?” His anger rapidly drains away, and the last half of the question comes out closer to a plea than anything else.

Cas, unashamed, holds up the cigarette.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Now that Dean is looking closer, it _is_ obvious. He hears the smoke in Cas’ voice, sees the burn between his index and middle finger, from all the times the cigarette burned down too low and caught his hand.

A slight breeze blows by, and Dean gets a faceful of second hand smoke. He coughs, doubles over. Meg laughs, but Cas silences her with a look and starts forcefully patting Dean on the back.

“It’s no big deal, Dean,” Cas says, once Dean’s coughs have subsided.

Dean’s practically speechless.

“No big deal?” he manages, aghast. “You’re thirteen, Cas. Normal thirteen year olds don’t smoke cigarettes!”

“Whoa,” Meg puts up two hands, palms out, smoke still dwindling from the end of the cigarette still trapped between her fingers, “Who invited my mom to the party?”

But Dean’s not listening, because it suddenly hits him.

Cas _isn’t_ a normal thirteen year old. Cas is the youngest of four siblings and has a mother who tries- _tried_ \- and failed. Cas is brilliant at many things, but incredibly stupid in terms of others. Cas doesn’t feel like other people, and Dean’s often likened Cas and emotions to trying to squeeze blood from a stone. They’ve been friends almost their whole lives, and Cas has never even initiated a hug. Not in almost ten years of friendship.

As insignificant as it is- even though it is incredibly significant, really- it’s that last fact that pushes Dean over the edge, that causes a feeling similar to the day Cassie wasn’t able to tell him that she loved him back. Because Dean’s losing something here, too. Something that was more important to him than almost anything else in the world.

He’s losing the person he thought Cas was, or he’s losing the real Cas.

He’s not sure which is worse.

***

Dean doesn’t really talk about it. Just like he didn’t talk about Cassie. Just like he barely talked about his and Cas’ future when they were entering junior high.

He’s grown up in a world that frowns upon talking about it. Despite Mary’s- and even Sam’s- prodding, Dean doesn’t talk about it. It’s obvious enough, anyways, that Cas doesn’t come over as much anymore. That when he does come over, there’s a lot less enjoyment and a lot more enduring for the sake of old times.

Dean’s scrabbling, a man drowning, searching for anything to keep him afloat in an unknown and uncaring ocean. But, similar to holding water in cupped palms, it dwindles.

The worst part about it is that there wasn’t any definitive moment that Dean can look back on and say, a coach watching a replay and pausing it at just the right moment to see where someone screwed up, _this is where it all went to hell_.

Because it didn’t. Not really. For all intents and purposes, Cas and Dean are still best friends. Minus the smoking incident, nothing happened to their friendship. It was a car that broke down for no reason, and Dean struggles with the realty of that every day.

If his friendship with Cas-one of the most solid things in his world- can disintegrate like white bread in water, then what kind of stability could anything else in his life possibly offer?

Even furthering his misery, Dean can’t form any of what he’s feeling into words. It’s just vague shapes and lines manifesting and making him feel like he’s walking around with a stomach ulcer.

It’s so strange to still hang out with Cas, all the while knowing that it’s not the same. He knows that Cas spends a lot of time with Meg and whoever her friends are. He knows that Cas is probably going to leave his house to smoke and do whatever else it is that they do, and stumble into his own room sometime past midnight and crash, fully clothed, on his bed. 

“So there’s this guy,” Cas says one day, sitting stock still on Dean’s bed, cross legged. Dean, in the middle of a particularly daunting math problem and chewing on his pencil eraser, goes rigid, expectant.

“His name is Crowley,” Cas continues, unaffected by Dean’s sudden stiffness. “And he’s a dick.”

That was _not_ what Dean was expecting, at all. He snorts, despite himself.

“And?”

“And Meg thinks he’s the devil’s spawn.”

Dean lets out a low whistle.

“Must be bad, then.”

Cas, who never bothers to respond to Dean’s very vocal dislike of Meg, nods.

“They’re cousins, actually. A lot of bad family blood between them.”

“Huh.”

“So they’re constantly out to get each other, in whatever way they can.”

Dean has never told Cas how much he hates it when they talk about Meg and all other assorted things Cas does without Dean,  and Cas has never seemed to clue in that Dean often clams up when these kinds of discussion topics arise. Or maybe he has, and just doesn’t care.

“Huh.”

“Crowley and Meg both have a lucrative underground business peddling things like alcohol and cigarettes, and they often conflict.”

“What a surprise. A black market in a junior high school in Lawrence, Kansas. Better watch out, Cas, or you’ll wake up in a bathtub full of ice one day without a liver.”

“They don’t deal in human organs, Dean.”

“Yet.”

Cas glances at the clock on Dean’s nightstand.

“I’ve got to go,” he announces, sliding off Dean’s bed.

Try as he might not to, Dean sounds like a nagging mother when he half-asks, half-demands, “Where are you going?”

“Meg thinks she has a lead on a new supplier of cigarettes- cheaper than Crowley’s.”

“Wow,” Dean marvels, “You better get on that, then.”

Cas nods solemnly. “That’s why I’m leaving.”

Dean sighs, tries and fails to refrain from shaking his head.

“Bye, Cas.”

Cas shuts the door behind him, and Dean stares hard at his math problem, enough so that it eventually becomes blurry.

With another sigh- a language Dean is fast becoming fluent in- he shuts his binder and goes to fight Sam for whose turn it is to watch TV.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting into some real after school special shit from here on out. just a warning.

During the next year, Cas spends a lot of time with Meg doing god knows what. Dean never asks, and Cas actually seems to get the hint and stops talking about it.

Dean thought that if they just shoved that whole thing in the closet and locked the door, then things would be somewhat okay again. If anything, however, it made it worse. Now he constantly feels like there’s this great, monolithic wall between him and Cas. By nature of osmosis, because they spent so much time together, Dean knew everything about Cas when they were kids.

But now that there’s information Dean doesn’t want, it changes things even more. Because now he doesn’t know all about Cas. He only knows the Cas that shows up to his house on occasion, sometimes smelling like he hasn’t showered in days, sometimes appearing in clothes that are more wrinkled than even a sixteen year old boy has any right to.

The Cas that walks away is a completely different Cas with a completely different mindset.

Cas, always the smartest person in the room, starts to miss school. His grades start to drop. Not wanting to be a pot calling the kettle black, Dean doesn’t say anything. But at the same time, Dean’s grades are actually going up. He was always a passable student, average in a lot of ways. But then some sort of switch flips in him, about halfway through grade nine. He realizes that he can use his love for mechanics and fixing things, and apply it to most everything he does. Even classes like art and English, once impenetrable to him, open up in ways he never thought they would.

Mary is ecstatic, Sam proud of his big brother.

“I always knew you had it in you,” she says, pulling Dean into a hug after he shows her his end of year report card. “I am so proud of you.”

Dean, flushing with embarrassment and pride, hugs Mary back.

“Thanks, mom.”

From somewhere behind Mary, Sam snorts.

“Guess I have competition for the smartest Winchester kid, huh?”

Dean blindly swats at the air behind Mary, and clips Sam right on the top of the head.

“Damn right, Samsquatch.”

Later, Cas tells Dean that his mom didn’t even ask for his report card with a non-chalance that doesn’t even sound put on.

***

Going into grade ten, into his first year of high school, Dean thinks about the promise he and Cas made before they entered junior high, and feels like someone just punched him in the gut.

He’s wishes he wasn’t foolish enough to say anything of the kind this time round.

 They’re in Dean’s basement sometime near the end of August, Cas flopped out, facedown, on the couch. Dean’s perched on the edge of a chair, playing with a stray thread on his shirt.

“So. High school next year, huh?” He says, too casually.

Cas, who’s been half napping, trains his gaze on Dean.

“Yes,” he agrees, and closes his eyes again.

Dean licks his lips nervously, and scrubs a hand over his jaw, trying to figure out the best way to broach the subject (again).

“A lot of things can change in high school,” he finally ventures, glancing at Cas’ still form.

“Yes,” Cas agrees again, without opeing his eyes. “I would assume that’s part of the plan.”

Dean feels his heart clench, tries to hide it.

“So you want things to change?” he asks, trying to mask how hollow his voice sounds.

Cas opens his eyes again and flicks his gaze over to Dean, flippant as ever.

“I’m tired of voice cracks,” he supplies, emotionally unintuitive as ever, “I’d like that to change.”

Dean swallows, and resituates himself on the chair, uncomfotable.

“Do you- do you want anything else to change?” he asks, his voice a first timer on waterskies, knees shaking and arms trembling.

Cas finally sits up and turns his full atnetion to Dean.

“I don’t know,” he answers seriously, eyes dark in the shadows of the basement.

***

The first day of grade ten, Dean (thankfully) doesn’t walk in on Cas and Meg smoking together. (By now, he figures it’s something much stronger than cigarettes.)

If possible, he walks in on something worse.

He’s looking for his English class, and even though all English classes are on the first floor, Dean somehow finds himself in the basement, searching in vain through damp and mildewy corridors, peering at the slightly disfigured class numbers fastened to each door.

He turns down the last hallway, only to see something he never ever expected to see.

Cas is entwined with a slender, dark haired girl, lips practically glued together. His hands are twisting in her hair, and her arms are gripping the lapels of his coat, pulling him in even closer. Their bodies are pressed together, from thigh to chest, and Cas has her against the lockers, knee between her thighs.

Dean, gobsmacked, stares for a full thirty seconds. Cas and the girl are so busy with each other that they don’t even notice Dean, slack jawed and gaping at the other end of the hall.

Eventually, Dean comes back to himself, feeling a roaring in his ears that makes him feel like he’s suddenly been plunged into the ocean without warning. His chest is tight, devoid of air, and he can’t suck in enough oxygen.

He stumbles backwards, finds his next class in a daze. He sits through his first English class, and doesn’t even remember his teacher’s name. All he can see is Cas, hair even more wild than usual, and the brown haired, anonymous girl that he was all over.

Dean has the sudden, horrible feeling of jealously burning hot through him, making his face heat up and teeth grind.

He has no right to be jealous. He isn’t Cas’ keeper, and hardly even qualifies as his friend nowadays. Besides, Dean should be glad that Cas has finally gotten some, has finally discovered the pleasure of being with another person in a way that’s not playing video games for twenty four hours straight.

And yet he is. Because _Dean_ is allowed to date other girls, and also have Cas as well. No one told him things worked the other way around. No one told him how it suddenly feels like he’s being shut out in the cold while there’s a roaring fire and hot chocolate just on the other side of the door.

Cas comes over that night, hair back to normal. Dean is thankful for small miracles.

He never mentions the girl, though.

Dean even prompts him, asks him if he’s met anyone he likes. Cas just shrugs, like every other time Dean has asked him that question over the years.

It makes Dean wish he’d never seen Cas and that girl. Makes him wish he could hear that answer from Cas and see that at least _some_ things stay the same.

Dean finds out why Cas never mentions the girl. Because the next time he sees Cas kissing someone, it isn’t the same girl. This one is blond and lithe, someone Dean recognizes but never realized Cas knew.

And then he sees Cas with a third girl.

And a fourth.

And he realizes that Cas doesn’t _like_ any of these girls. Maybe as friends, sure. But Dean knows the _look_ , and Cas doesn’t have it. He can’t see how Cas’ step has lightened, can’t see how Cas walks like there’s a permanently blown up balloon inside his chest. It’s been years, but he still remembers those few short weeks with Cassie, where he learned that walking on cloud nine was a lot closer to reality than the saying would have you believe.

Dean doesn’t know if Cas is _searching_ for that feeling, or if he’s running from an entirely different one.

***

They find themselves at the rusty truck together for the first time in a long time.

Since it’s been somewhat retired as _their_ spot, Dean often finds himself here when he needs to be somewhere quiet. It’s peaceful out here, overlooking the wheat fields in one direction, the forest in another. On the wheat side, the land goes on for miles, a yellow patch in a county-wide quilt. It’s rolling, shallow dips and troughs only broken by the immediacy of the tractor, and the rotting wood posts that used to be joined together by a fence long rusted and returned to the earth. The forest- a generous term, really- across the dirt road is merely a tree line about a hundred feet thick. Beyond that, it’s almost a direct mirror of the field.

Dean sees the light from Cas’ joint at the tractor soon enough that he can turn around and head home without any awkwardness. He wrestles with the decision for a moment, then decides that _technically_ , they’re still friends. _Technically_ , this is their place. He’s just as welcome to it as Cas.

Cas is sitting on the tire, inhaling another lungful of smoke, when Dean ambles up, hands in his pockets. Involuntarily, his nose wrinkles at the smell.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets levelly on an exhale, careful to blow any extra smoke downwind of Dean. His smoking methods are obviously more studied than his academics.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean hops onto the tire beside Cas. When they were younger, there was definitely a lot more space. Now, their elbows and knees bump, and Dean feels his joints tingle at the contact. It reminds him that Cas is a real person, strangely enough.

Maybe it’s stoner etiquette, Dean’s not sure, but Cas offers him the joint between two fingers. Smoke wafts off the end, carried away by the twilight breeze. Dean stares at the joint, stares at the nimble fingers holding it. For a moment, he’s more tempted than he’s ever been. Maybe they’ll never fully regain what they’ve lost, but if Dean says yes right now, they can start anew. He can meet Meg properly and hear more about Crowley’s latest dick move. He can do all the things that would disappoint his mother and spend nights egging houses and drinking beer in kid’s parks. It would be so easy to fall into Cas again, to pick up the slack where they dropped it so many years ago. Because as much as Dean likes to think otherwise, Cas is Cas, whether he changes or not. This Cas may not be the Cas he met at four years old, may not be the Cas who practically had question marks for eyes when Dean pulled him in for a hug on his first day of primary. He may not be the Cas who he watched _Star Wars_ with, or the Cas who he caught fireflies with.

And yet he is, and that’s partly why Dean declines the joint with a wave of his hand.

Cas, unaware of the enormity of the gesture, shrugs and takes another pull.

They sit in silence for a while, Cas smoking and Dean thinking.

Once Cas finishes his smoke, he tosses it into the field, the butt flaring orange in one more vain attempt at lighting. For a moment, it looks like a firefly, and Dean is seven again, in love with his best friend.

Then Cas coughs, and Dean comes back to himself, sixteen years old, in love with his best friend.

“How’s Sam?” Cas asks, rubbing his palms on his jeans in a smooth, unhurried motion.

“Good, he’s good. Major geek, mathlete, trivia team, the whole shebang,” Dean smiles despite himself, thinking of his dweeby little brother, “you haven’t seen him in a while, but he looks like a sheepdog, man. I keep threatening to shear him in his sleep.”

Cas smiles, small and tight.

“Good. I’m glad.”

Dean hesitates before asking the next question social customs dictate he ask; reciprocity is not always his friend.

“How’re- how’s your family?” he stammers out, not really wanting to know, and yet wanting nothing else.

Cas’ shoulders go tight, and he freezes, a mannequin. He stares at nothing for a moment, then speaks, emotionless.

“Gabriel took off a week ago. Don’t know where.” He moves his fingers to his mouth, forgetting that he doesn’t have anything to smoke anymore. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he presses them tightly to the tire, his right pinky inches away from Dean’s left one. “Anna left as well. She hadn’t even finished high school.”

Dean feels like the air has been pushed out of his lungs, forgets to breathe for a minute. He doesn’t know any of Cas’ siblings very well, but he imagines what it would be like it Sam just took off one day, without warning. Without a note, or a phone call.

He shudders, practically convulses at the thought. Almost instinctively, he entwines his little finger with Cas’, gentle, comforting. Anything to make him feel less alone.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he says quietly, voice carried on the warm, late autumn air.

They sit like that for a moment, joined at the hands, in sync in a way they haven’t been in a long time.

“When I threw that joint away, and the end was still lit a little bit, I thought…” Cas starts, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to remember something that’s only playing at the edges of his memories. “It reminded me,” he continues, quietly, hand tightening again under Dean’s, “of that night we caught fireflies in a jar and then let them all go.”

Dean huffs laughter, quiet in the darkening night.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he admits, slowly, almost unconsciously moving his pinky back and forth over Cas’ hand.

Suddenly, Cas smiles again. It’s small, nostalgic and bittersweet. He holds it for a moment, and then, gradually, his face smooths out; crumples. When he speaks next, his voice is thick, and he has to clear his throat.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he says, voice more sincere than Dean has ever heard it.

Dean’s pretty sure he knows what Cas is apologizing for- _everything_ \- but he still needs to know. Needs to have some sort of concrete evidence he can hold onto whenever Cas calls him, high as a kite, or when Cas shows up to school three hours late with a black eye of unknown origins, that maybe things can be like what they once were. Or an approximation, whatever.

“For what?” Dean asks, and hopes to god that Cas isn’t actually going to list all the reasons.

Cas doesn’t answer. _Can’t_ answer, maybe. But, then Cas is grabbing Dean’s hand hard enough that Dean can practically hear the bones grinding against each other, and it’s answer enough. It’s the most physical contact that Cas has ever initiated, and with the grip Cas has on Dean, he wonders how much Cas has been holding back. Or how much he’s been depriving himself. He thinks of the girls he’s seen Cas with, hopes that they make Cas feel less lonely.

Cas lets go of Dean’s hand, the crushing warmth gone, leaving him surprisingly cold.

“It’s complicated,” Cas finally says brokenly, and Dean’s not sure if he’s answering the question or opening a new conversation topic.

Dean can taste autumn on the air, feels the rises on the tire pressing into his thighs. These things are tangible, solid. Things he can put a name to. This thing with Cas is so fluid, changeable. Different. It’s in the space between them, in the way Cas says his name and the way Cas is just always there. _Was_ always there, at least. It’s in the way Cas laughs and the way Dean hugs him just a little bit more often than necessary. It’s in the way Dean can’t let this go, in the way Dean can _never_ let this go, will always carry some semblance of a torch for Cas.

It’s these things that finally break Dean of his don’t ask don’t tell mantra, and he says, finally has the courage to ask in the dwindling twilight of a night that’s teetering on the edge of fall, still holding onto the last vestiges of summer, “ _What’s_ complicated, Cas?”

And Cas, dear deer in the headlights, who wasn’t expecting an inquiry for more. Was expecting sympathy, maybe. A hug. But not an offer to fix.

He freezes up, wipes suddenly clammy palms on his jeans.

“I’ve got to go,” he announces, because these days, Cas always has to go. Always has to leave.

Dean feels the snub much more acutely than he expected. Cas has made a habit of leaving, of walking away while Dean watches his retreating back, feeling a little more tired each time. So it shouldn’t affect him this much. But the fact that it was a direct refusal for help seems to amplify Dean’s hurt. His fingers twitch. Cas isn’t a computer Dean can just fix. He’s not a machine.

Cas slides off the tire with one last look at Dean, who manages a “see you around,” spoken from between frozen lips. And once again, he’s left watching Cas walk away.

 ***

It’s exactly 3:05 in the morning when Dean’s phone starts blaring on his bedside table. Blearily, he fumbles for it, knocking over assorted things with his flailing hand, too discombobulated to even be annoyed yet.

“’Lo?” He slurs into the phone, eyes still mostly shut.

It’s only when no one answers back that he realizes it was a text. He opens his phone, eyes burning from the bright light.

It’s from Cas.

_I need help. At the abandoned lot._

Dean snaps into awareness so fast he thinks he might have whiplash. He sits up in bed, all exhaustion of moments ago forgotten.

“Cas?” he asks no one in particular, his bedsheets falling off him and puddling around his waist. He glances outside the slit in his curtains- there’s barely a hint of green dawn on the horizon, the trees on the other side of the dirt path nothing more than a dark, solid mass.

He doesn’t even need to think about it.

***

Dean should have worn more than a sweater on this rescue mission. It’s only the beginning of October, but he feels like his hands are frozen to the steering wheel of John’s Impala. It took him less than ten minutes to throw on some clothes and grab the car keys from where they hang next to the coat rack, and then he was off to the abandoned lot behind the local convenience store. It’s about a fifteen minute drive, down a lot of dusty, unmarked county roads that aren’t lit properly at night, and if Dean didn’t know these routes like the back of his hand, he would have been lost in no time. Not to mention the fact that he only has his learner’s, and if Mary wakes up and finds him gone, he’ll get the punishment of a lifetime.

But none of that matters, because Cas asked him for help. Cas, who _never_ asks for help. It says a lot about his faith in Dean, regardless of their friendship status these days, and a whole lot about what kind of situation he must be in.

It makes Dean grit his teeth when he knows that this is Meg’s fault, somehow. That Cas would get pulled into something like this.

By the time he pulls into the parking lot of the convenience store, he knows enough to be careful. The kind of people Cas has been mixing with these last couple of years aren’t known for being welcoming. 

Since it’s a local convenience store, it’s closed, and  the only lights are the muted glow from the streetlamps lighting the front parking lot. The concrete expanse out back, weeds growing from the cracks in the pavement, is totally black, save a few beams of flashlights.

Dean parks so that the building is hiding the Impala from view, and silently makes his way towards the group. He does his best to avoid the light from the front lot, not wanting to cast any sort of shadow or be an easy target to spot. He has no way of knowing where Cas is until he’s close enough to hear voices.

He creeps forward, straining his ears for any kind of conversation. It’s silent, until he hears a female voice, loud and biting, sarcastic even when it sounds like she’s being serious.

“That’s a load of bullshit, and you know it.”

Then, Cas’ voice, louder than Dean’s ever heard it.

“I tried, okay? It wasn’t supposed to end up like _this_.”

One of the flashlight beams goes skyward, and Dean thinks it’s Meg, throwing her hands up in frustration.

“You’re a fucking moron, Castiel. Look, I know you’re new to this whole business, but come _on_.”

“Cut the kid some slack,” comes a new voice, one Dean’s never heard before. It’s accented, British. “I give him some credit for creativity, actually. This business needs bright eyed and busy tailed, and have you seen his eyes? Christ, I think I need some Coppertone.”

“Cram it, Crowley,” Meg snaps.

From the sounds of it, there’s only the three of them, which makes Dean feel confident enough to speak out.

“Cas?”

Three flashlight beams immediately whip around, focusing on him. He squints into them, tries to distinguish who’s who.

“Dean?” comes Cas’ voice from the far left, far more confused and far less relieved than Dean thought he would sound.

“Oh, hey, it’s Dean!” Meg announces, sounding far too smug. “What a surprise!”

“Ah,” says the British voice, who Dean assumes to be Crowley. “So this is the infamous Dean Winchester, eh?”

Dean ignores Meg and Crowley, even though a small part of him wonders why they’re all here together, since Cas told him Meg and Crowley hate each other.

“Cas, I’m here,” Dean says, prompting.

Dean’s pretty sure Meg is in the middle, and her beam shakes up and down, like she’s laughing silently.

“I see that. _Why_?” Cas asks, dumbfounded. The urgency from his voice before hasn’t bled out yet, and it taints his tone, makes it sound aggressive.

Dean holds up his phone in explanation. “You texted me…” he trails off, can feel the confusion radiating from Cas, “didn’t you?”

Silence.

Suddenly, Cas whirls his beam around onto Meg, pale with dark circles under her eyes.

“Meg, what did you _do_?”

Meg shrugs, unapologetic.

“All you ever do is complain about how much you miss your boyfriend, Castiel. It’s messing you up. So I did us all a favor and invited him out for a little _bring your beloved to work_ day, capiche?”

A flashlight beam falls on Cas, whose eyes are wide and panicked, stricken.

“No, I don’t _capiche_ ,” he snarls. His gaze swivels to Dean, blue eyes burning. “You need to leave, Dean. _Now_.”

Dean, who’s completely lost, shakes his head.

“Cas, what the _hell_ is going on, man?”

“Okay, okay!” Meg interrupts, like she’s finally ready to reveal her evil scheme, “I _may_ have texted him because we need more hands on deck, and he’s built enough to hold his own. _Possibly_.”

“Oh my god,” Cas has dropped his flashlight and put both hands over his face. It’s definitely the most unraveled Dean has ever seen Cas, and it spooks him.

“Cas-” he starts again, but is interrupted by a loud, sputtering engine.

“Fuck,” Cas spits out, “ _Fuck_! Dean, get the hell out of here.”

The doors to the new car open, and four menacing silhouettes climb out, the streetlamp behind them casting their shadows long and bony over the parking lot.

Whatever’s going on, Cas looks like he’s about to pass out, and Dean knows, instinctively, that there’s no way in hell he’s leaving Cas to face this alone. He moves to Cas’ side, takes his stance.

“What are you doing?” Cas hisses, sounding like he’s about to come apart at the seams. “I told you to leave.”

Dean just shakes his head, mute.

“You stubborn, insufferable-” Cas cuts himself off, sucking in a deep breath. He looks like he’s about to start in on Dean again, when Crowley whispers at them to _just shut the fuck up with the lover’s quarrel already_ , _bloody hell_.

The four figures from the car turn on their own flashlights, and make their way towards them.

“Azazel!” Crowley calls out, weirdly chipper. “How’s it hanging, mate?”

For all intents and purposes, the guy is normal, though Dean can’t help but notice how his eyes are weirdly yellowed, like he has jaundice or something.

“Chopped off, as you well know, Crowley.”

Crowley puts a scandalized hand over his mouth.

“Oops, how very rude of me,” he says mockingly.

Meg rolls her eyes.

“Okay, gents, zip up.” She glances at the one who must be Azazel, “Well, if you have anything to zip up, that is.” Azazel leers at her.

The three others with Azazel aren’t nearly as frightening, but still look like they could snap Dean in two if they wanted.  One of the boys- really, they’re probably closer to men- is dark skinned with close cropped black hair. He has a goatee and red, bloodshot eyes. The other boy is pale enough that he practically glows in the dark, with hair so blond it’s almost white. The girl is the most unassuming, though Dean figures that counts for little here. She has dark hair, and her eyes are strangely excited, but there’s something sly in her face as well, a conman.

Azazel’s gaze falls on Dean, who tries not to flinch. He can’t believe he’s somehow wound up in shady, late night parking lot dealings. _What the hell, Cas_.

“Who’s this?” Azazel asks, his mouth twitching into what must be a grin.

Cas immediately puts a foot in front of Dean, slightly shifts his body weight to push himself between Azazel and Dean. Azazel notes the movement with a knowing glint in his eyes.

“Just a contact. No one important. He’ll keep his mouth shut,” Cas assures Azazel, strong words belied by the underlying quiver to his voice. Azazel smirks, an expression much better fitted to his face. He stares past Cas, eyes boring right into Dean’s, who can’t help but shift uncomfortably.

“Oy, gents,” Crowley snaps, “Sorry to break up the party, but can we get this moving?”

Azazel holds Dean’s gaze for another minute, then snaps his gaze to Crowley.

“You want to get this moving? Okay then, where the fuck is my money?”

Crowley _tsk_ s and shakes his head.

“No, Zel, that’s not what I meant. I don’t owe you any money. We _gave_ you your product.”

Azazel hacks out a laugh that makes the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand up.

“This is Ruby,” he gestures to the girl, who smirks at them all. “She’s our… _expert_ , I guess you could say. Ruby, why don’t you tell them what it was cut with?”

Ruby’s smirk becomes more pronounced.

“What, you mean how someone thought it would be clever to cut it with _chalk_ and didn’t think we’d notice?” She laughs, “Good try.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Crowley says, affronted, “And I am appalled that you would think so little of me.”

“Can it, England,” Azazel snaps, obviously not interested in this game. “We know you fucked with it.” His flashlight travels down the line, like a spotlight. “Now, which one of you got greedy?” He muses, his beam coming to a rest on Cas.

He steps forward, towards Cas, who again puts himself between Dean and Azazel.

“It was a mistake,” he admits, and Dean feels a swooping in his stomach at the same time he hears a quiet groan from Meg on Cas’ other side.

Alistair’s eyebrows rise, as if he wasn’t expecting Cas to cop to it so readily.

“Huh.” He turns to the blond boy at the back, who nods slightly, and turns back to Cas. “So then what are we gonna do with you?” He asks, reaching out a bony finger to tap Cas on the forehead. “There was a lot of money in that batch, and now we’re completely fucked.”

Cas shrugs. “I suppose you can do whatever you like, Azazel. So long as the only person who’s getting the beating is me.” He glances over at Crowley, who looks like he wants to turn tail. “And Crowley,” he tacks on. Crowley’s face goes puce.

“Aww, Clarence,” Meg chimes in, fake flattery in her voice, “That’s really sweet of you to protect me and all, but I am a big girl.”

Dean can feel a fight brewing in the air like a farmer can feel a rainstorm, and he cannot _believe_ that this is happening, that this is what Cas does with his life now. He’s about to get the shit kicked out of him because Cas tried to cut someone’s fucking drugs with chalk.

And the problem is, Azazel and his goons easily outweigh Dean and Cas, and absolutely tower over Meg. Even Crowley, who’s reasonably stocky, doesn’t look like he’d stand much of a chance.

They’re looming, moving closer. Dean’s adrenaline kicks in, and he feels it flood his body, getting him ready to fight. He’ll help Cas get out of this, and if they both make it out alive, he’ll flay him for being a moron later.

Dean feels like he’s under a microscope at the mercy of Azazel’s stare.

“I like you,” Azazel says, and his cronies laugh. Cas stiffens.

Azazel takes another step towards their group, and the fight is seconds away from happening, dangling on the precipice, when Meg suddenly whips out a small can of pepper spray and blasts it in Azazel’s direction. He clutches his face and howls, cheeks turning red and tears streaming from his eyes. Enough of the extra spray catches his goons, and they’re all in the midst of various states of pain, when Cas grabs Dean’s sweater sleeve and yanks hard enough to rip it.

“ _Move_!” he shouts over their cries, and suddenly Cas is pulling Dean in one direction while Meg and Crowley take off the opposite way.

Dean’s heart is thumping in his ears and he doesn’t even register which way Cas is directing him until he finds himself shoved into the front seat of the Impala, Cas clamoring in after him.

Cas’ eyes are big and blue in his face, shouting, “Keys! Where are the keys?” at him, searching frantically through his pockets. He manages to pull them out of Dean’s left pocket and jams them into the ignition, puts her into gear, and then they’re speeding off into the night, away from what Dean is positive is a horrible nightmare.


	8. Chapter 8

They’re almost home, Cas having driven in silence the entire way. Dean’s head is back against the passenger side seat, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the adrenaline to drain from him.

Less than ten hours ago, Cas had been holding his hand on the wheel of the tractor, sounding for all the world like he wanted nothing more than things to go back the way they once were.

And now they’re on the run from drug traffickers, or dealers, or both, and Dean doesn’t even know which way is up anymore. Doesn’t know what Cas’ word means anymore.

Cas rolls to a slow stop in front of Dean’s house, parks the Impala in the driveway where she always sits. He takes his hands off the wheel, looks around as if he doesn’t know what to do with them, and puts them back at ten and two, gripping the wheel like he wants to rip it out of the dashboard.

“Dean,” he says quietly, voice tight, like his throat is trapped in a vice, “I can’t even begin…” He blows out a breath, shakes his head. “I got in over my head,” he admits, “It was my first time doing it, and I thought I was being clever, but I just really really fucked things up. Not that I particularly care, but Crowley is probably going to have to move because of it, because they know where he lives.  And Meg is going to have to watch her back for the next couple of months at least, because Azazel isn’t above hunting down a sixteen year old.” He chews his bottom lip, worried. “I suppose I’ll have to watch out as well.” Turns regretful eyes to Dean. “You too.”

Dean’s still in something akin to shock, head in his hands, immobile. That’s probably the reason why he starts to laugh, taking great, heaving gulps of air that makes it sound like he’s sobbing. His shoulders shake, and he thinks a tear or two actually slips out. Cas watches him silently, face lit only from the outdoor porch light that they leave on overnight.

Eventually, his heaving dies down, and silence descends on the car once more.

“It’s not funny, Dean,” Cas says softly, “You could get hurt.”

“I know,” Dean says, sobering up. The laughter drained the last of his adrenaline, and now he’s just tired. So incredibly tired.

He presses the heels of his palms into his eyelids until he sees colors swimming, and groans, load.

“What the hell are you doing, Cas?” he mumbles, more to himself than an actual question. He has no idea how many times he’s asked this question over the past two years. Has no idea how many times Cas has deflected the answer.

To his immense surprise, Cas shrugs. It’s not much of an answer, but it’s more than Dean’s ever gotten before.

“You should go inside,” Cas tells him, even if it doesn’t sound like what he wants to say. Dean finds it strange, this almost emotional honesty coming from Cas. Between last night, and the fact that he almost directly answered a question he’s been resolutely avoiding for the last two years. He decides now might finally be the time to push.

“No,” Dean shakes his head. “I’m not going inside. Not yet.” He shifts, so that he’s facing Cas directly, one knee bent on the seat. “Talk to me, man,” he implores, trying to express with his tone just how much this is overdue.

Cas clamps his mouth shut, shifts in a way that Dean can really examine his face. His skin is drawn and pale, shadows under his eyes, just like Meg. He’s been smoking or snorting or ingesting _something_ for much too long. Dean hopes to god it isn’t the stuff they were talking about back in the lot.

Dean thinks back to last night, every night they spent together on the tractor. Back when Cas was a chubby cheeked kid who liked puzzles and dinosaurs, and seemed to actually like it when Dean hugged him. His heart suddenly and forcefully clenches hard enough that he can’t breathe for a moment. The fact that they’ll never be _that_ again, that innocent, that carefree, that _together_ , just envelopes Dean, steeps him in the knowledge that going backwards is not an option.

Without warning, he throws himself at Cas, pulls him into a bone crushing hug. Cas is skinnier than Dean remembers, and he suddenly eases up, afraid of hurting him.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean mumbles into his shoulder. Sorry for you. Sorry that we fell apart. Sorry that it’s come to this. Cas smells like sweat and weed and smoke and Dean just pulls him in closer, fully aware that Cas should also be apologizing to him. Friendship is a two way street, after all.

Cas is hesitant at first, and for a horrifying moment, Dean thinks he’s going to pull away. But then he’s clutching at the back of Dean’s shirt like a child, burying his face in his chest. His breathing is ragged, his fingers surprisingly strong. He holds onto Dean like he’s the only thing keeping him breathing, and once Dean realizes he won’t break, _never_ breaks, he’s squeezing him back just as tightly.

Dean buries his face in Cas’ hair, presses his lips down, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Cas melts into the touch, moves to rest his chin on Dean’s shoulder, whispers apologies in Dean’s ear, and Dean consoles the best he can, but feels his eyes start to burn as well, and has to stop because he can’t speak through the lump in his throat.

Eventually, when the sky outside is finally lightening, Cas pulls away, eyes dry and red rimmed. They stare at each other for a moment, and for the first time, inevitable as this estrangement has been, Dean realizes it hurts Cas as well.

“Can you come inside?” Dean asks, hoping against hope Cas will say yes. Just wanting to know that he’s safe for at least the next couple of hours.

Silently, Cas nods, and Dean opens the passenger side door. Because he needs to know that Cas is safe, needs to know more through sight, he grabs Cas’ hand, just like Cas grabbed him back at the abandoned lot. He guides him inside, and Cas moves without resistance, knows the way to Dean’s room better than he knows the way to his own.

When they were kids, they used to sleep in the same bed during sleepovers. As they got older, Cas would sometimes pass out on the couch in the living room, and Dean would put a blanket over him before heading to sleep in his own room. This morning, though, Dean doesn’t want Cas on the couch, and Cas doesn’t seem to want the couch. On an unspoken agreement, Cas and Dean crawl into bed together, Dean holding onto the last vestiges of the incredibly strange twenty four hours if only it means keeping Cas close.

They fall asleep almost immediately, tucked together like the pieces in the puzzles Cas used to love so much.

When Dean wakes up five hours later, warm and to the sounds of birds chirping, Cas is gone.

He tries not to let it bother him.

***

Things are better, for a while. Dean sews up his sweater, they don’t hear from Azazel again, and Cas claims that Crowley told him they should be in the clear by now. Cas’ cheeks regain some color as he seems to ease up on the substance abuse. Gabriel and Anna are still missing, and Cas is constantly worried out of his head, but he also tells Dean that it doesn’t really surprise him that they left.  Knowing Gabriel, he’ll get in contact eventually.

Cas hangs around a bit more, and they even spend a night looking after Sam when Mary goes out, even though, according to Sam he’s “twelve years old and can look after myself, thank you very much,”. It doesn’t stop them from watching movies together all night, and Dean can’t stop himself from smiling when he sees just how much Sam looks up to Cas. Cas may not be the best role model of late, and Dean’s sure Sam has gleaned some sort of insight into what’s going on, but he’s proud, regardless.

It doesn’t stop the voice at the back of Dean’s mind that promises him this won’t last, however. He knows Cas got spooked because of the thing with Azazel, knows he hasn’t spent much time with Meg since.

According to Cas, the only reason Meg and Crowley ever presented a united front that night was because he managed to convince them that working together would benefit the both of them.  As it turned out, it was detrimental to both of them, and because of that, Cas has lost his contact with Crowley, and Meg is just as wary of him as he is of her.

So things are okay.

Which means, of course, that things go straight back to hell almost as soon as they’ve gotten better.

It’s not like Dean finds Cas snorting lines of coke off a supermodel’s stomach, either. It’s nothing even close to that. In fact, it shouldn’t be a problem at all. Even if they hadn’t already dragged their friendship through the mud, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

And yet, the day that Dean accidentally walks in on Cas making out with a guy is the day where it all falls apart again.

When Cas sees Dean, it’s like he’s looking at a ghost. His face drains of color, expression pallid.

“Dean,” he croaks, and the other guy mentions something about catching a bus and takes off, brushes by Dean as he practically sprints down the hallway.

Dean is somewhat surprised, but only because he’s only ever seen Cas with girls.

“What, so you’re gonna try and make out with the whole school before graduation?” he tries to joke, but it falls flat, and Cas just stands there, staring at him, like he’s waiting to be struck down or beaten up or _something_.

When Cas continues to say nothing, and it starts to freak Dean out, he takes a step forward, hands out, placating.

“Dude, Cas,” he says, as non-judgementally as possible, “you know I don’t care, right? It’s really no big deal.”

Cas, his face milky, nods. He starts gathering his stuff, shoving his coat into his bag, looking anywhere but at Dean, who stands there awkwardly and waits for Cas to say something in reply.

But Cas never says anything, only slings his backpack onto his shoulders and walks away, leaving Dean more confused than ever.  

***

The next time Dean sees Cas, he’s being woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of small pebbles being chucked against his window with increasing fervor.

He stumbles out of bed, eyes still half-gummed together with sleep. His window is old and rusty, and it makes a horrible crunching nose as he pulls it open.

Standing in his front yard, another pebble primed to throw, is an unsteady Cas.

“Dean!” he slurs out, dropping the pebbles with muted clacking sounds. He sways on his feet, and his face is bright and pale in the moonlight. Dean almost expects him to raise a boombox above his head with Air Supply blasting, but he’s lucky in that department, at least, and nothing of the sort materializes.

“Cas!” Dean hisses, then automatically checks to see if his mother’s or Sam’s light has been turned on to investigate the noise, “What the hell, man?”

Cas blinks up at him, eyes glazed and wide. He’s got a half-baked, sheepish grin on his face, and raises his shoulders in a sloppy shrug.

“I can’t find my house.”

Dean shuts the window as quietly as possible, and is out the front door in moments. When he puts a hand on Cas’ shoulder, he jumps about a foot in the air. Dean puts his hands on either sides of Cas’ face, and assesses him, trying to figure out just how messed up he is. His pupils are dilated hugely, barely a hint of blue peeking through. Dean shakes his head, sighs.

“Cas, man,” he chastises without heat, voice small and sad. He puts a palm over his eyes, tries to rub the tiredness from his system. “What happened?” he asks, because he has to know.

Cas blinks slowly with eyes as bloodshot as a basset hound. He starts to laugh, hysterics that Dean are sure will carry across the lawn and into the house. As they subside, he grabs him by the shirt front and drags Dean in so they’re practically standing nose to nose. Dean gets a whiff of alcohol, weed, and something else he’s sure he doesn’t want to know about. Cas’ hands twist the fabric of his shirt, knuckles white.

“ _’What happened_?’” Cas repeats, eyes shiny and intense. The corner of his mouth twitches, and he bites his bottom lip for a moment, as if he can’t remember. He drops Dean’s gaze, and looks down at his shoes, as if they hold all the answers. Dean has his hands circling Cas’ wrists, trying to ease his grip a little bit, but Cas has the strength advantage of the inebriated. Then his head snaps back up, and he staggers at the quick movement. Dean takes the opportunity to unlock Cas’ hands from his shirt and takes a step back, switching to a hand on Cas’ upper arm, holding him steady.

Dean tries to hold it together, tries to remind himself that he’s seen Cas messed up before. It doesn’t really make it any easier, though.

“Yes,” Dean says, slowly and evenly, “What happened.” It’s not a question anymore.

Cas squints at him, as if he’s staring at him through a sheet of rain instead of the cold air of early November. He mirrors Dean’s gesture, puts a hand on Dean’s upper arm. His other hand comes up for emphasis, and he leans in, like he’s about to tell Dean a secret.

“ _Life_ ,” he confides, eyes dark and serious.

And Dean would laugh, would brush it off as a loaded person’s ramblings, if he didn’t know Cas before tonight. But because it’s Cas, because it’s _always_ Cas, Dean understands.

Cas pats him on the shoulder twice, misses once. His expression melts back into one of glee, complete with toothy smile.

“Life,” he repeats again, a non-chalant axiom that has Dean’s stomach plummeting to his feet.

“Okay, Cas,” he says, soothing as possible, “Okay. Just- come and sleep it off inside, okay?”

He guides a suddenly contemplative Cas inside, pulls him into his room. Normally, Cas sleeps on the couch, but Dean figures a hungover Cas doesn’t want to deal with a too chipper Mary in the morning. Besides, Dean has kept Mary as in the dark as possible about the Cas situation, and he wants to keep it that way.

As soon as they enter his room, Cas flops onto his bed, and in the next second is up again, hand over mouth, and sprinting to the bathroom. Dean follows, resigned.

He finds Cas bent over the toilet, shoulders heaving and forehead clammy.

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean mumbles, wetting a cloth and pressing it to Cas’ forehead, supporting hand on his back. “At least you got it all out.”

Cas shoves Dean out of the way and leans over to vomit again. Dean rights himself and puts the hand back where it was, rubbing circles on Cas’ back.  Cas rests his head on his forearm, panting hard, shuddery breaths.

Trying not to look down, Dean gently pulls Cas away from the toilet and flushes. Cas clutches at him, limbs floppy.

“Okay, you all done here?” Dean asks, putting the lid of the toilet down. Weakly, Cas nods, and Dean half carries him back to his room.

This time, Cas gingerly sits down on the bed, so as not to disturb his stomach any more. He rolls to the far side of the bed, and Dean follows. Cas lays on his side, facing Dean.  His breath smells absolutely rancid, but Dean tries not to think about it. He’s also going to be sweating out all the alcohol in Dean’s sheets, but he tries not to think about that, either.

Cas’ eyes are wide and surprisingly alert. They’re both at the inside edges of their respective pillows, meaning they’re only a couple inches away from each other. Their breathing syncs up eventually, and they continue to just _look_ at each other.

 “Why do you do this to yourself, Cas?” Dean asks, voice soft enough so as not to disturb the silence of night.

Cas closes his eyes, as if in pain. Dean thinks he’s gone to sleep, but then his eyes open again, still reasonably lucid.

“It’s hard,” he slurs, eyes locked on Dean’s. “It’s really hard.”

Dean nods.

“I know,” he says, “I know it is.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No, you don’t. Because, it’s like-” Cas points to the bed, “Dean, _this_ , right here, is my home.”

Dean quirks a brow.

“Your home is my bed?”

“ _No_ , Dean. Moron. Your home is my home. _You_ are my home.”

Dean feels his throat constrict, feels a tightening in his chest that hurts a lot more than he realized it could.

“You live down the street, Cas,” he feels obligated to point out. Wonders why he’s reasoning with someone as out of his head as Cas.

Cas makes a frustrated sound, as if he can’t properly articulate what he wants to say.

“I don’t live there,” he clarifies. “I sleep there. I eat there.” He’s burrowed himself under the covers so that only his head is visible. A streak of moonlight cuts through the slit in the curtains, and it highlights the shadows under his eyes, the misery etched into his features. Dean’s hands twitch. He wants to fix.

“What about your family?” Dean asks carefully. Knows it’s a sensitive topic, knows Anna and Gabriel aren’t home yet, aren’t ever coming back if they can help it.

Cas shakes his head.

“We were never a family,” he mumbles, finally breaking his gaze from Dean’s. He stares at Dean’s pillow instead. “It didn’t work. My mother tried, but she just… couldn’t.” His eyes become liquid and a crease forms between his eyebrows. “I never told you, but one time in eighth grade she just left for a week. I still don’t know where she went.”

 So maybe Dean, who’s lived his whole life fatherless, but with a mother and brother who he wouldn’t trade for anything, with a mother that wouldn’t dream in a million years of even going to the grocery store without letting him know- maybe Dean can’t relate. Not entirely.

“I’m so sorry, Cas.”

Cas perks up, as if just struck by a thought.

“Do you remember in elementary, when you, me, and Jo created the Dead(Beat) Dad club?” he asks, smiling at the memory. There’s a painful edge to it, something that tugs that corner of his mouth down. “It was so morbid, and when they forced us to explain they brought in a child psychiatrist to talk to each of us.” He huffs laughter, and Dean feels the breath tickle his chin. “What they didn’t understand was that it was just kids putting a face to something they have trouble dealing with.”

Dean smiles, soft and sad.

“I remember.”

Cas nods, seemingly encouraged. Dean has to keep reminding himself that Cas isn’t sober at the moment, probably won’t remember any of this in the morning.

“You made my life so much easier, Dean.” His eyes become intense again, “You’re my role model, did you know that?”

Dean has to close his eyes for a moment and let that statement wash over him. Obviously, he hasn’t been doing a very good job of it, then, if Cas is still puking in toilets every night.

He’s startled into opening his eyes when he feels a palm fit itself to his cheek. Cas has a hand on his face, thumb swiping back and forth on the apple of his cheek.

“That wasn’t supposed to make you sad,” Cas informs him, _duh_ implied. “You’re so _good_ , Dean.”

When Cas says that, his voice is so goddamned genuine that Dean has to hold back some kind of outpouring of emotion, be it yelling at the sky or breaking down into tears. Instead, he settles for grabbing the hand Cas has on his cheek, and squeezing.

“You’re good too, Cas. You know that, right?” Because suddenly it seems so important that Cas understand what Dean’s known for over ten years.

Cas withdraws his hand from Dean’s, and resignation floods his features. He doesn’t say anything, but Dean can see that he doesn’t believe it. He truly, genuinely doesn’t believe it, and it breaks Dean’s heart.

“Cas,” he says quietly, tone enough to make Cas look at him again, “it doesn’t matter what you do; Smoke, fuck around in school, kiss dudes, fucking craft pottery, I don’t care, as long as you’re _happy_. You need to be happy again, man.”

“I’m happy right here,” Cas says.

And it’s weird, but in this moment of time, suspended at an ungodly hour and cushioned on all sides by thick, unoppressing silence, Dean believes him.

But the most important thing is that _Cas_ believes it, wholly and completely. No one needs something to believe in nowadays more than Cas.

***

It’s been a long time since Dean’s been here. Years, actually. He kept his promise for a while, but eventually things just fell by the wayside. Sort of like a lot of other things in Dean’s life.

He knocks on the open door, and Mrs.Mosley-heavier, greyer, and with more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but looking just as kind and warm as ever- looks up from whatever she’s writing at her desk. When she recognizes Dean, she immediately stands up and walks towards him, pulling him into a big hug.

“Dean Winchester!” She trills, obviously delight that he’s come to see her again after so long. Then she smacks him on the arm. “What took you so long to come visit again, boy?”

Dean rubs at his arm and shrugs sheepishly.

“Sorry, Mrs. Mosley.”

She shakes a finger in his face.

“Just don’t let it happen again.” Then her face softens, and she smiles, “How are you, Dean?”

It’s just a question. A simple one at that. But it’s impossibly hard for Dean to dredge up a smile and a, “fine, Mrs. Mosey.” Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come see her.

Mrs. Mosley doesn’t look like she’s buying it, but she doesn’t say anything.

“What about your mom and brother? How are they doing?”

Dean smiles, genuine, this time. This is a subject he can talk about.

“They’re great,” he enthuses, “Sam is doing awesome in school and reads anything that sits still long enough.”

Mrs. Mosley nods, pleased.

“Good, good. And how’s Jo? That girl hasn’t come back to visit me once, you know. Next time you see her, give her a smack from me.”

Dean laughs and promises that he will. He tells her that Jo is doing fine, helping her mom out at the bar she owns.

And then Mrs. Mosley gets a little quieter, a little softer. As if she knows the next question is going to be more difficult.

“And Castiel?” It’s like she knows, though Dean doesn’t know _how_ she could possibly know.

He freezes for a moment, and then nods his head robotically.

“Cas is surviving,” is all he says, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

He really shouldn’t have come back here. His eye catches the _Star Wars_ puzzle sitting on the shelf, still here after all those years. The kitchen playset is still in the corner, a little more beaten, but nonetheless the same.

He swallows hard, and tries to focus on what Mrs. Mosley is saying, but he can’t. He’s too distracted by all the trinkets from his past, all the things he used to share with Cas. Again and again, Dean’s been violently reminded of how much things _aren’t_ the same anymore, and this is just one more to add to the list.

The fact that he even has a list in the first place makes him incredibly, brutally sad.


	9. Chapter 9

After the conversation in his bed, Dean doesn’t see Cas for two weeks straight.  He doesn’t come to school, he doesn’t answer Dean’s texts or phone calls, and Dean even talks to a none too concerned Joan Novak.

Over the years, Joan Novak has hardened even more from the woman who only grudgingly hugged a four year old Dean. Her face is gaunt, her hair gone straggly and limp. There are lines etched into her face, which Dean doesn’t understand because they obviously weren’t garnered by worrying about her children. More often than not, she spends her time smoking cigarettes out on the sagging porch.

“He probably took off after his brother and sister,” she tells Dean when he comes to check Castiel’s house. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“And would you have any idea where they would be?” Dean asks, trying to remain patient.

Joan shrugs.

“Sorry. Can’t help you.”

And she shuts the door in his face.

Once Cas finally stumbles his way into school, Dean isn’t any closer to finding out where he’s been. All he knows is that Cas is wearing the same shirt that he was wearing when he left and he has a big, inflamed gash on his forehead. He’s not interested in confiding his adventures in Dean, that’s for sure.

So Cas stars coming to school again, at least. Dean does his best to monitor from afar, since Cas is even more adverse to talking to him than he usually seems. He’s usually some combination of high and drunk, but he’s gotten so good at masking it by now that the teachers either don’t care or don’t notice. Or maybe they always thought he walked like that, who knows.

Cas never seems to get into real trouble, but that’s only because he doesn’t do anything- including piss off the teachers. He doesn’t do the work, but he doesn’t retaliate when teachers start harping on him about it. He just takes it. Dean tries to offer to help Cas study and get his grades up, but Cas just stares at him as if he’s from outer space, and Dean gets the hint.

The months start to pass, and Dean feels the gap growing again. He feels the static in the air whenever he and Cas talk now, like all of their communication ends up getting stopped by radio silence. It frustrates him to no end, because for a while there, it felt like they were getting somewhere. After the Azazel incident, things seemed a little bit better. He’s even fairly certain Cas managed to pass a biology test at some point during that window.

But obviously, the Azazel thing hasn’t kept Cas off the wagon forever.

Ironically, the only time Dean can get any sort of information out of Cas is when he stumbles to Dean’s house, under the influence of one thing or another, at some unforgivable time in the morning. Dean had finally given in sometime after the new year and given Cas an extra key to the back door, since Dean was tired of being woken up before dawn once every couple of weeks. Now, Cas just lets himself in and sleeps next to Dean, who usually wakes up and has at least an inquiry or two to make, sometimes just making sure Cas won’t throw up on the sheets.

Cas is always gone in the mornings, and absurdly, it makes Dean feel kind of cheap.

One night, Cas shows up, paranoid out of his mind, hands trembling so badly that he can’t even get the key in the lock. Dean wakes to the sound of someone thumping on the back door, and thanks his lucky stars it doesn’t wake up Mary.

He’s all set to chew Cas out for making so much noise, until he opens the door and Cas practically falls into his arms, shuddering hard enough that Dean’s not completely sure he isn’t having a seizure of some sort.

“Cas? Cas,” He grips his shoulders, tries to get a good look at Cas’ face. Cas’ head lolls forward, chin dipping to meet his chest.

“’Lo, Dean,” he mumbles, and Dean feels Cas’ muscles lock up for a moment before going completely limp. “Did you see how the stars are falling?” he continues rambling, speaking complete nonsense to his shoes.

Dean is stuck supporting Cas’ full weight now, and he knows there’s no way he can get Cas to his room and into bed without hurting him. Without anything else to do, he sinks to the floor, taking Cas with him. One of Cas’ eyes is narrowed, as if he tried to wink and got stuck, and he’s glazed over, unmoving.

Dean snaps his fingers in Cas’ face, trying to snap him out of it.

“ _Hey_ ,” Cas startles to awareness and locks eyes with Dean. There’s a sheen of sweat on his face, and his hair looks like he’s been pulling it. Dean sees some areas where it looks like someone managed to yank out chunks of hair- or Cas pulled it out during one of his paranoid moments. The circles under Cas’ eyes are more pronounced than ever, and the whites of his eyes are some terrifying combination of bloodshot and yellow. Tremors are rocking through him again, and he has goosebumps up and down his arms, but when Dean feels his forehead, it’s burning up.

This is the most messed up Dean’s ever seen Cas, and he feels fear clench in his chest like a vice.

“Cas,” Dean speaks slowly and clearly, desperately needs Cas to answer his question, “What did you take tonight?”

Cas has his knees up and locked in the cage of his arms. His cheek is resting on his knees and his eyes are wide as they stare at nothing. He looks like he’s muttering something under his breath, and his breathing is now coming in short, quick bursts. He doesn’t answer Dean’s question.

Dean takes a deep breath, tries not to think about how labored Cas’ breathing sounds. He’s never had to call an ambulance for Cas, but he’s always figured it would happen someday. There have been some close calls, but as much as Dean loves Cas, he’s always held back from picking up the phone. So long as the problem stays within these walls, it’s something Dean can fix. As soon as Cas gets taken away from him to some impersonal, stark hospital room, he has the horrible feeling that Cas will feel like Dean betrayed him.

“Gotta tell Dean,” he hears Cas stutter out, rocking back and forth. “Gotta tell Dean.”

Dean leans forward, hands curling protectively around Cas’ calves.

“Tell Dean what?” he asks, hoping Cas will answer this time.

Cas startles, locks gazes with Dean. As soon. as his eyes meet Dean’s, he blinks, though there’s no recognition sparked there. Then he starts muttering faster, words Dean could never hope to make out

Dean has a hand over his mouth, and he feels the familiar panic start to swoop through him. He doesn’t know what to _do_. He feels the tears start to burn behind his eyes, and furiously wipes at them.

“Cas, I don’t know what to do,” he pleads, “Please tell me what you took. Please _help me_.”   

And suddenly Cas is looking at him again, eyes clear. He’s still trembling, and his voice is shaky.

“Sorry, Dean,” Cas says. “I’m sorry.”

And then he has to turn his head so he can empty his stomach’s contents onto the floor beside him. Once his shoulders are done quivering, and the retching noises have stopped, he turns back to Dean, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The glaze has settled over him again, eyes glassy and clouded.

“It took everything to get me here, you know,” he whispers conspiratorially, ecstatically.

Dean chokes back a sob.

***

As terrified as he still is, Dean thinks Cas throwing up has gotten the majority of it out of his system. Obviously, his stomach didn’t agree with whatever it was just as much as his brain didn’t.

Exhausted and scared, Dean helps Cas hobble into bed after forcing him to drink some water. Most of it, Cas seems to cough back up, but he manages to keep some down, and Dean counts it as a good thing. He makes sure Cas’ breathing has evened out before he slips out of the room to go clean up the mess Cas made.

When Dean gets to the back hallway and sees Mary mopping up Cas’ vomit, he freezes, his brain coming to a complete standstill.

Mary looks up when she hears the footsteps stop. Her face isn’t angry or disappointed. It’s sad.

“You can’t think I didn’t know,” she says quietly.

Dean hears a rushing in his ears, is almost afraid he’s going to fall over.

Mary finishes mopping up in silence, and Dean remains completely still. Once she’s done, she turns to Dean, face still so soft and kind and warm that Dean feels himself unfreeze, and finds himself collapsing into his mother’s arms, much like Cas fell into his not half an hour ago.

“Oh, god,” he groans, feeling the tears start to roll down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, mom.”

She wraps her arms around him and leads him into the living room. She sits him down on the couch and kisses his hair.

“I’ll be back in a second,” she promises, and heads into the kitchen.

Dean puts his face in his hands and feels his shoulders shaking. He stays that way for a long time, and the only reason he snaps out of it is because Mary bumps his arm with a mug. He looks up, feels how red and puffy his eyes are. He takes the tea with a silent “thank you”, and Mary sits beside him with her own mug.

Dean watches his mom take a sip of tea, and mirrors her grip on his own cup. He’s not used to drinking tea, so he decides to wait for it to cool off a bit before drinking it.

There’s a quiet thud- Mary putting her mug on the table beside the couch.

“You love him so much,” she finally says, and it’s not a question.

Dean sniffs.

“It’s _Cas_ ,” is his only response to that.

Mary nods her head as if she understands, and Dean thinks, she does. She really does.

 “You know,” she says, after another silence, “when you were young, and I mean, like four years old young, I couldn’t believe you.” She smiles at Dean, eyes fond with memories. “You loved without question, and without reservations. It was like you just had caverns upon caverns of love hidden somewhere away in that little body of yours, and you just kept constantly dipping into them and sharing that love with every single person you met.” She stops here, and Dean hears the hitch in her next breath.

“I knew that you would have a hard time, letting people go,” she explains, “I knew it from the moment you said your first word.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. He never knew what his first word was.

“’Daddy.’” Mary answers his unasked question. “When you were a baby, I would talk to you for hours about your dad, and how much I loved him. And the day that you said your first word, I cried. I was so proud,” she wipes at her eyes, smiles through the tears, “and scared.”

Dean feels his throat tighten, and he clenches his mug tighter.

 “I can’t tell you what to do about Cas,” Mary continues, “I can be here for you, and I can be here for him. But I can’t tell you what to do.”

Dean nods.

“I don’t even know what to do about Cas,” he admits quietly, “I don’t think Cas knows what to do about Cas.” Dean shakes his head, trying to understand as he goes. “I mean, he’s just so miserable, all the time.  And I try to help him, you know? All he ever seems to do is apologize to me, but he keeps on doing it. I don’t understand why he can’t just-” Dean swallows hard. “Stop,” he finishes, quietly.

“These things aren’t always as simple as they seem,” Mary reminds him, taking a sip of her tea. “Cas hasn’t had the privilege of growing up in a loving home like most children. He’s had a hard life.”

Dean picks up his mug and then puts it down, too hard.

 “We’re more Cas’ family than they are, anyways!” he exclaims, feeling the truth of it ring in every word. He knows that he’s been there for Cas every step of the way, whereas his family couldn’t care less. Cas has told Dean, more than once, that Dean’s house is more of a home to him than anywhere else. Cas has told Dean that _he_ is his home.

And yet somehow it’s not enough. Somehow _Dean_ isn’t enough.

He doesn’t realize he’s spoken aloud until Mary puts a hand on his arm, and her voice is firm, stating a fact.

“Trust me, Dean. You are enough. Never ever think that you aren’t.”

Dean can’t help but sound petulant when he replies, “Well then why is Cas still high half the time? Why does he stumble home at three in the morning and miss days of a school at a time? Why is he so _broken_?” Fittingly, Dean’s voice breaks on the last word.

Mary just shakes her head sadly and shrugs.

“I can’t answer that, honey.  All I can tell you is that Cas doesn’t seem broken when he’s looking at you.”

 For some reason, Dean feels his cheeks heat up, and he groans out a quiet, “ _mom_ ,”.

Mary looks at him innocently, and Dean tries not to think about what exactly Mary’s words mean.

***

Things with Cas are rough for the next while. He doesn’t crash at Dean’s house anymore. While Dean is grateful for the extra hours, he’s also worried that Cas has decided to sleep it off on a park bench somewhere, or the back of some random stranger’s car.

Dean’s not sure if Cas is embarrassed, bored, or just changeable. Dean hasn’t been sure about anything relating to Cas in a long time.

Sam, who’s just finishing up grade six, constantly pesters Dean about Cas. He misses Cas’ presence around the house, misses an extra person to discuss academia with, because as much as Dean excels at school, he’s still not a fan of Shakespeare on the weekends. Usually, he manages to run Sam off with various physics formulas that he’s memorized and taken to yelling extremely loudly whenever Sam starts sentences with phrases like, “If you look at the symbolism on page twenty, line five…”

Some nights-like tonight- Sam and Dean don’t even think about school. It’s just them, a playstation, and a lot of zombies to kill. Also, junk food. Mary often swears that if they keep eating Cheetos, they’re going to turn into one. Their standard response is to throw a cheese stick or two in her direction until she rolls her eyes and leaves them to their carnage.

Halfway through their game, Sam pauses it. Dean glares at him, because they have a strict, “no pausing unless bathroom or fire” rule, and Sam just pissed five minutes ago. Sam looks surprisingly serious though, so Dean holds back on the rude comments.

He takes a deep breath, like he’s been psyching himself up to say this for a long time.

“Dean…” he begins, and Dean can’t help the ominous feeling that creeps up on him. “I don’t want you to lie to me, okay? Promise to tell the truth?”

“Uh…” Dean scrambles to beat Sam to the chase and figure out what he’s trying to say before he says it, but he’s lost. The only thing Dean’s done lately is eat the other half of Sam’s sandwich that he made for a snack the other day, and even though Dean blamed Mary, and the chickens, and the dogs, he figures Sam still has the brain power to know that it was him. “Okay.”

Sam nods, relieved. He seems strangely resigned.

“Okay, then. Dean. Is um… Is Cas… still alive?”

Dean stares at Sam for a full ten seconds, before bursting into great, heaving gasps of laughter. He laughs until he realizes Sam isn’t laughing with him, and when he sees Sam, completely straight-faced, staring at him, he realizes Sam is serious.

“What? Sam, dude, _yes_ , obviously. Cas isn’t dead, you moron.” Dean shoves his shoulder and Sam rolls his eyes, huffing out a breath. Dean can see his cheeks turn red in the glow from the television. “Besides, if Cas ever died, you would know. Trust me.” Dean tries not to dwell on that fact, and does his best to keep the levity in his expression. “Why the hell would you think Cas is dead, dude?”

Sam shifts, obviously uncomfortable.

“I dunno. I mean, every time I ask you about him, you just clam up and don’t really answer me. I mean, I haven’t seen him in a _long_ time, and that’s pretty weird. I used to see him practically every day.”

Dean puts down his controller and stares at Sam. He’s been avoiding the Cas conversation with his (hopefully) ignorant little brother for as long as possible, but obviously the time is fast coming where he’s going to have to figure out how to explain to a twelve year old that his idol now usually spends his free time getting smashed and blacking out and failing classes.

“Cas is… around.” Dean hedges, if only to buy himself some time.

To his complete non-surprise, Sam doesn’t buy it.

“Around _where_ , Dean?”

“Around.”

“Dean.”

Dean throws up his hands. “I don’t know what you want from me, Sam. He’s around, okay? He’s fine.” Dean almost chokes on the word fine, but it doesn’t twist too badly coming from his mouth, and he’s absurdly proud.

“But then how come you guys don’t hang out anymore?” Sam pesters.

Dean scrubs a hand over his jaw, heavily debating with himself on whether or not to lie. On the one hand, Dean can barely describe the situation to himself on good days. On the other, Cas is like Sam’s brother as well, and Dean sort of owes him the truth.

Dean sighs heavily.

“Okay, Sam, you asked for the story, so shut up and listen, got it?”

Sam nods, excited, like Dean’s going to tell him Cas is a secret agent or something, instead of a drug-addled sixteen year old.

Dean tells Sam the (very abridged) version of what’s been going on with Cas the last few years, leaving out the really bad trips and amount of times Cas has used their bathroom to throw up whatever drugs he’d ingested in the previous twelve hours.

Once he’s finished, Sam’s eyes are wide and surprisingly speculative.

“Oh,” he says.

Dean shrugs, ignoring how painful reliving the past couple years has been.

“There’s your story,” he says brusquely, and gets up off the couch, heading for the doorway. “Hope you enjoyed.”

“Dean-” Sam calls out after him, but Dean is already gone, and Sam hears the front door slam.

***

The summer between grades ten and eleven, Dean sees Cas exactly once, and it’s the night after the last day of school.

Dean finds Cas at the tractor, sans smoking paraphernalia. In fact, Dean is surprised to find that Cas looks the most normal that he’s seen him in a very long time. His eyes are clear, his hair a normal amount of dishevelled, and as ridiculous as it sounds even in Dean’s mind, he just smells like Cas. No alcohol or weed or other assorted drugs.

This is Cas, sober, and Dean doesn’t realize how much he’s missed this sight until he tries to greet Cas and can’t speak around the lump in his throat.

Cas, sitting on top of the truck’s cab, looks down at Dean fondly, corners of his mouth turned up in a genuine smile.

“Hello, Dean,” he says quietly, warmth trickling in and around his words like a broken faucet that won’t stop dripping. 

An absurd kind of light headedness attacks Dean then, and he’s practically giddy with the feeling.

“Hey, Cas,” he tries to keep the buoyant laughter out of his voice, but Cas looks at him knowingly, and Dean knows he isn’t fooling anyone. “It’s good to see you, man.”

The sun is setting, and from the angle Dean is looking, it looks like Cas is outlined in gold. There’s no breeze tonight, just a dry kind of heat, like clothes that have just come out of the dryer. The sun’s rays cut through the broken glass in the window of the tractor, sending beams off in every direction, a strainer for sunlight.

Dean climbs up onto the big back wheel, and Cas follows his movements, smiling softly the whole time. Even though he’s facing away from the sunset, he’s squinting, and something in that expression makes Dean laugh.

“What?” Cas asks, and narrows his eyes further when the question just makes Dean laugh harder.

“Nothing,” Dean manages to get out, “Absolutely nothing.”

Cas doesn’t say anything else, because Dean’s pretty sure he gets it.

They sit in silence for a while, basking in the glow of the day’s light. When the last vestiges of the sun are just sliding behind the horizon, casting ruby red strands through Cas’ hair, Dean’s fairly certain that this is the happiest he’s been in a long time.

“I passed the year,” Cas says out of the blue, not looking at Dean. “Barely, but I did.”

Dean nods, a weight that he hadn’t even realized was on his chest, dissipated.

“Good for you, man.”

Cas watches his feet, swinging over the top of the cab. He takes stock of himself, as if just noticing for the first time how far off the ground he is.

“I’ve been thinking,” he begins offhandedly, as if what he’s about to say is of no consequence, “that if I end up… making it, you know, through school… that I’d like to be a pilot.”

There’s this feeling, somewhere behind Dean’s ribcage, strong enough that it’s threatening to crack a rib if it keeps expanding, and it’s pride. Dean is proud- exceptionally so- of Cas.

“You’ll make it,” Dean says, certain, and he’s not just saying it for Cas’ benefit. Cas will do it, because he’s Cas.

Cas nods, as if he’s grateful for Dean’s faith in him. To be fair, though, Cas never had to ask for Dean’s faith. Dean has given it willingly, both deserved and not, since the day they met.

“I don’t care what I fly,” Cas continues, “Plane, jet, hot air balloon, whatever. I just think that I need to be up there. I need to be high.”

There’s a loaded silence where Cas’ ill-chosen statement sinks in, and then Cas starts to wheeze with laughter. Dean joins in, hand over his face as he chuckles relentlessly.

“That… is not… what I meant,” Cas manages to say in between laughs. “Oh, god, that’s not what I meant at all.”

Dean continues to laugh, and Cas continues to laugh, and it’s so _genuine_ , not the hysterical laugh of someone who’s high, but the laugh that Dean remembers, when they were four years old, that first day that Dean introduced Cas to Sam, and Sam burped, leaving them both howling with laughter.

Dean laughs, and he’s not sure if that sharp catch in his breath is pain, nostalgia, joy, or a combination of all three.

***

July and August fly by without a word from Cas, and Dean is convinced he has a stomach ulcer from worrying so much.

The worry is so bad, actually, that at the end of August, Dean sucks it up and goes to find Meg, just in case Cas has been on a two month bender with her.

He knows the majority of her haunts through association with Cas, and Dean flits between them, trying to catch her alone. He runs into a lot of people that he would rather not have run into, but he perseveres, the thought of Cas strung out in one of these alleys enough of a spur to keep him going.

After a couple of days, he finds Meg at one of the classiest of her and Cas’ hangouts- behind the dumpsters at the elementary school.

Her hair is bleached blonde now, a stark contrast from the dark brown it used to be. It throws Dean off, and he almost tucks tail just because it unnerves him so much, but she catches sight of him before he can take off.

“Dean Winchester?” she calls out, obviously delighted. Her face splits into a grin, sly and wicked. “What a freakin’ surprise.”

Dean rolls his eyes, and wrinkles his nose at the wall of smoke he hits as he walks closer. Meg takes a deep drag on her cigarette and makes a point not to turn her head to blow away from Dean. He gets a faceful of smoke instead, and has to grip the lip on the back of the dumpster to steady himself as he coughs it out. When he straightens up, Meg is looking at him, the picture of innocence.

“What’s up, Deano?” she asks cheerfully.

Dean’s dealings with Meg have been limited at best. Neither of them have ever gone out of their way to make nice, despite their mutual investment in Cas. Meg represents a part of Cas that Dean really isn’t interested in, and Dean figures he’s a little too white bread for Meg. Not to mention the fact that Dean sort of _completely_ blames Meg for what happened to Cas in the first place. Every time he sees Cas with her, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Hell, anytime he sees Meg at all, he feels like he needs a cleansing shower afterwards.

As much as he doesn’t like her, as much as he’s tempted to take scissors to that damn leather jacket she wears around everywhere, Dean decides now isn’t the time to focus on said urges. He just needs answers.

“Have you seen Cas around?” he asks, trying to keep the distaste out of his voice.

Meg quirks a brow, and Dean already feels like he’s given her leverage, somehow.

“Clarence?” she clarifies, and Dean grits his teeth. He hates that nickname, and she knows it.

“Yes. _Clarence_.”

Meg smirks around her cigarette, and takes her time replying. She finishes her smoke, and flicks it to the cement, grinding it out with the toe of her boot. Dean will never understand how she can wear what she does in the summertime. He’s sweating, and he’s wearing cargo shorts and a short sleeved shirt.

Meg shrugs.

“Maybe he finally snapped and joined his wayward brother and sister.”

Dean sighs. He can never tell if Meg is being sarcastic or not.

“Meg, just answer me straight. Do you know where Cas is or not?”

Meg shrugs again, obviously enjoying Dean’s distress.

“Me and _Clarence_ have a different kind of relationship than you and _Cas_ ,” she explains, rustling around in her pockets. She has a lot of pockets, and doesn’t seem interested in expanding on what she just said until she finds what she’s looking for. Eventually, with a triumphant grin, she comes up with a somewhat squished joint. She holds it between her lips and lights it, offers the first puff to Dean.

“No, thanks,” Dean says, trying to hold onto his patience.

“Suit yourself.”  Meg sucks in the smoke, holds it. Once she’s expelled the excess smoke, she points at Dean.

“You,” she wags her finger, “Care. I,” she points to herself, “don’t.”

Dean waits for her to continue, but she just stares at him, as if that should have been explanation enough.

“Okay?!” Dean finally exclaims, “So what the hell does that mean?”

Meg rolls her eyes.

“When Castiel goes off on his little benders, do you think I go _looking_ for him? Do you think I sit at home like some army wife wringing her hands?”

Dean feels a crease form between his brows, and he’s suddenly re-evaluating what he thought he knew about Cas and Meg and their relationship.

“But-” he starts and stops, confused. “You guys spend, like, every day together.”

“So?” Meg sits down on one of the larger rocks, elbows resting on her knees. She seems incredibly unbothered about the situation, and Dean’s not sure how to handle it.

“’ _So_?’” Dean repeats, “I just assumed you were close? I dunno, you’ve known each other since grade seven.”

“Why, Dean, is that jealousy I detect in your tone?” When Dean visibly starts to bristle, Meg holds out a hand. “Calm down, chewy. Look, me and Castiel hang out. We smoke together. It’s not like we have slumber parties and braid each other’s hair.”

Dean runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

“You’re saying that you don’t _care_? You don’t even feel the slightest bit responsible for him?”

For the first time in the conversation, Meg seems confused.

“Why would I feel responsible for him?” She leans forward, surprisingly engaged.

Dean lifts his brows like it should be obvious.

“Um, how about the fact that you were the one who introduced him to this stuff in the first place?”

Meg stares at him disbelievingly.

“You’re a moron.”

“What?”

Meg stands up, and holds out the joint to Dean again.

“Here. Want some?”

Dean shakes his head.

“I _already told you_ , I don’t want any.”

Meg puts a finger to her chin, mock-contemplative.

“Huh. So what you’re saying is that I offered you some drugs, and you said no? Like, you’re allowed to do that? Castiel isn’t a precious little angel. He’s a big boy, and he makes his own decisions. I don’t know what kind of pedestal you hold him up on, but I’d re-evaluate.”

Dean shakes his head slowly.

“It’s your fault,” he insists, quietly.

“Ugh.” Meg frowns at her already finished joint. “You’re totally killing my buzz.” She flicks the butt into the forest, and turns to Dean. “Look, Winchester. Life isn’t a PSA, okay? Cas had every right to say ‘no’ every time I offered him something. Trust me, I wouldn’t have cared- more for me. He has agency, you know. He’s a real person.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks. I know he’s a real person.”

“Well then how about you hold him accountable for his own actions?” She huffs a laugh, then looks at Dean again, like she’s just realized something. “Wait a second. Don’t tell me you’ve been walking around since we were twelve years old, holding a _grudge_ against me, because I _corrupted_ your sweet little Cas.”

When she sees the look on Dean’s face, her mouth falls open.

“Holy crap. That is a long time to have the wool pulled over your eyes. It’s almost adorable.”

Dean shakes his head.

“Shut up. I know Cas makes his own decisions, okay? I just want to know if you know where he is. Obviously, you don’t, and this whole thing was a waste of time.”

Meg snorts. “Yeah, except for those violent character revelations you just had. Enjoy.”

Dean is halfway across the empty playground when Meg yells after him.

“Hey, Winchester!”

He turns around. Her blond head barely reaches over the dumpster, even when she’s using a rock as a stepping stool.

“I hope you find your boyfriend. And when you do, tell him he owes me fifty bucks.”

***

Okay, so maybe there had been a grain of truth to what Meg had said. Maybe Dean’s been bottling a lot of shit for a lot of years, and maybe he’s a little bit angrier about this whole situation than he’s led Cas to believe.

Maybe he feels like he’s been betrayed. Or duped. Or baited and switched. Maybe he’s been holding onto a Cas that’s four years old and loves dinosaurs.

But there’s something else Meg said that’s annoying him even more, and that’s the idea that her and Cas aren’t even close. They’re just brought together a by mutual lifestyle. It drove him crazy enough when he thought they were close, but now that he knows they aren’t, it’s almost worse.

Because if Cas chooses to hang out with Meg- a casual acquaintance- over Dean, then what the hell does that say about Dean and Cas? Dean knows, god knows he knows, that they aren’t as close as they used to be. There’s a certain camaraderie shared by best friends on a daily basis, and Dean hasn’t felt that with Cas in a long time. But at the same time, there are the days that Cas grabs onto his hand like it’s the only solid thing in the world, or the days when Cas is sober enough to watch movies with him and Sam.

Dean doesn’t understand any of it. He doesn’t understand Cas, he doesn’t understand their relationship, and he doesn’t understand himself.

Dean is so very tired of it all.

He’s tired of worrying, of hoping, of _praying_ for Cas. He doesn’t pray. It seems needy to him. It feels like begging. He’s fairly certain there’s no one upstairs listening to him anyways.

But for Cas, he makes an exception.

And, somewhat violently, and quite a lot unpleasantly, Dean realizes he’s tired of Cas being his exception.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, guys, this is a really long update. we're in the home stretch for sure, only one chapter after this left. I don't tend to write notes much, but I just want to say, if you'd made it this far, if you've commented, left kudos, bookmarked, or just stayed along for the ride, thank you very much. it really means a lot to me, and I hope you've all enjoyed what you've read so far.  
> for better or for worse (for dean and cas, anyways) this particular story of theirs is almost over. thanks for sticking with it.

The day before grade eleven starts, there’s a knock on the front door. Mary and Sam are out back, playing with the dogs, and Dean is sprawled out on his bed, rattling the windows with a Zeppelin record. It’s only in the lull between songs that he hears the door, and in his hurry to answer it, he leaves the music blaring, the strains of _Over the Hills and Far Away_ following him through the house.

He yanks open the door, and his entire reaction is in the way he doesn’t react at all.

“Cas,” he says blankly, breath pushed out of him like he’s been punched.

Cas, for all intents and purposes, looks normal. Normal, as in, not under the influence of anything. Otherwise, he looks awful, haggard. But healthy enough. For Cas, “healthy enough” is usually all Dean asks for.

Cas doesn’t say anything, just looks at Dean with eyes morose and heavy. He sags, like he’s been carrying a weight on his back for too long. He’s carrying a worn duffel bag in one hand, and a crumpled up piece of paper in the other. The hand around the paper twitches minutely, like even when Cas is focusing on other things, he needs to keep reminding himself that it’s still there.

“Cas,” Dean says again, “Jesus.” And he pulls Cas into a hug, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and resting his chin on Cas’ shoulder. He turns his face, smiling into Cas’ neck. He hears the soft whump of the duffel bag falling to the porch, and just pulls him in tighter. Cas doesn’t hug back, hasn’t hugged back in a long time. It doesn’t even bother Dean.

“God, _Cas_ ,” Dean is entirely embarrassed to be blinking tears out of his eyes, but he was so desperate to find him that he went to fucking Meg for info. If that doesn’t spell out how worried he was, he doesn’t know what could. His brain isn’t even firing properly right now. The only words coming to mind are _Cas_ , and various swear words.

He pulls away from Cas, grabs the bag that he dropped, and practically shoves Cas into the house. He’s fairly sure he’s never going to let Cas out of his sight again. Like a reflex, Cas heads up to Dean’s room, and Dean follows, too happy right now to even think about his conversation with Meg from last week.

Dean drops Cas’ duffel on the floor and hurries to pull the needle off the record, and immediately gestures for Cas to sit down. He doesn’t need to, since Cas has already taken a spot right beside Dean, looking like he’s about to pass out the moment he lays down.

“Do you want food? A drink? Anything?” Dean asks, finally regaining speech function.

Cas shakes his head, and Dean feels the manic euphoria in him calm a little. Obviously, Cas isn’t in the mood for anything right now. He just seems unbearably tired. Physically, he looks the same. But Dean feels like he’s sitting in the presence of someone older. Someone more jaded.

He gets the explanation a moment later.

“I went looking for my dad,” Cas says, words dull.

 Dean feels the world stop spinning for a moment, and then it picks up double time. Of all the things he had expected Cas to be doing the last two months, that wasn’t one of them.

“Did you… did you find him?” Dean asks, clearing his throat.

Cas nods, and Dean feels his chest constrict. It would have been different if Cas hadn’t been able to find his dad. He would have come back upset, forlorn. But if he’s come back like this, and he managed to find his dad, then all Dean can assume is that the meeting did not go well at all.

Cas doesn’t offer anything else, and Dean’s not sure if he ever will. He just lays down on Dean’s bed, still at home here as he ever has been, and falls asleep in minutes. Dean doesn’t mean to look, but the piece of paper slips out of Cas’ hand and unfurls on the bed. There’s nothing written on it.

Dean, suddenly unsure, puts a hand briefly on Cas’ shoulder, before leaving the room and closing the door as quietly as possible behind him. He makes his way out back, and Mary and Sam are in the midst of a giant tug of war with one of the dogs, laughing and obviously losing. Dean’s face must say all it needs to say, however, because they’re both up and coming towards him immediately, game forgotten.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” Sam asks, eyes wide and worried.

“Cas is back.” Dean announces monotonously. “He went looking for his dad.”

Mary puts a hand over her mouth, and Dean hears a quiet, “oh my god,” slip around her fingers.

“Did he find him?” Sam asks, looking between Dean and Mary, apprehension crossing his features, obviously feeling like he’s missing out on something.

“Yeah, um, he did. It didn’t go well, though.”

Mary leans back against one of the pillars on the porch, shaking her head slowly. Sam looks incredibly disappointed.

“Can I go see him?” Sam asks. As upset as he is by the news, Dean knows Sam is happy to have Cas home again. He feels the same way.

“He’s sleeping,” Dean says, at the same time Mary says, “Later, Sam.”

“Sam, I need to talk to your brother for a minute,” Mary says, “Can you go turn on the oven for me?” Sam, who usually would argue until he’s blue in the face about being left out, only nods and walks inside, mindful to close to back door quietly so as not to wake Cas upstairs.

As soon as Sam is inside, Mary pulls Dean into a hug.

“I know Cas isn’t alright,” she says as she pulls away, “but how are _you_?”

Dean snorts.

“Does that really matter right now?”

Dean doesn’t think it’s the kind of question that should make Mary look so upset, but her eyes are swimming.

“It always matters, Dean.” She focuses on him, every single ounce of attention she has to give, “I know that your relationship with Cas is… difficult. I know that you two have a lot of things to work out, and I know that you’re close. But you need to understand that sometimes you just need to focus on _you_ , right?”

Dean is not following the conversation at all. He crosses his arms.

“I’ve been focusing on _me_ for the last two months, mom.”

“I think you’ve been pining for him for the last two months, Dean.” Mary says softly, “You know that I love Cas. You know I do. This isn’t even about him. I just want you to remember that you’re a person too, okay? You don’t always need to be thinking about other people before yourself.”

Dean gestures vaguely in the direction of his bedroom.

“What, you just want me to ditch Cas on the side of the road so I can take a bubble bath and watch feel good tv? You want me to dump him off at his house where nobody even gives a crap that he’s gone?”

“Dean, that’s not what I meant.”

Dean takes a deep breath, holds the scent of rolling fields and incoming autumn for a moment before letting it out slowly.

“I know,” he says quietly, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I know. I just-” he starts to make his way towards the back door, eyes pleading with Mary to understand, “I need to go check on him.”

Mary doesn’t say anything, just watches her son leave to give away more pieces of himself to someone who she’s not sure can return the gesture.

***

Dean is sitting in the desk chair, flipping through a copy of Kerouac’s _On the Road_ for the millionth time, when Cas finally sits up, hair sticking out enough that it looks like invisible forces are trying to pull individual strands out of his head.

“Hey,” Dean says quietly, putting the book down, “How you doing?” A stupid question, no doubt. But necessary.

“Hello,” Cas croaks out, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t say anything else.

“It’s pretty stuffy in here,” Dean comments after a beat, standing up. “Want me to open the window?”

“Yes. No, wait.” Cas shakes his head, and gestures at Dean. “Come here.”

Dean stands at the bedside, looking at Cas expectantly.

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Cas says, and Dean brushes it off immediately.

“Leave it, Cas,” he says, moving to open the window. He’s surprised when Cas grabs his wrist and pulls him back onto the bed.

“I mean it, Dean.” He continues, eyes sincere. “I’ve apologized before, but I _mean it_ this time. I’ve messed a lot of things up, and I’m going to make it all up to you in time.”

Dean can’t help but feel like he’s walking into another trap if he accepts Cas’ apology. It’s not that he doesn’t want to believe, but he’s been burned so many damn times before. He thinks briefly of his conversation with Meg, knows that it’s not Cas’ fault how much he’s misread the situation. A lot of things are Cas’ fault, if they’re being honest, but that’s not one of them.

Dean forces a smile.

“How about you just stay, then,” he says, a suggestion that hurts a lot more than his delivery would indicate. “Or at least tell me when you’re going to disappear for months at a time, okay?”

Cas nods seriously. “I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon,” he promises, “A lot’s changed in the past couple of months.”

“Really?” Dean asks, curious despite himself.

“I haven’t done… anything, since I left,” Cas tells him, and Dean swears he detects a small note of pride in Cas’ voice. “Too much going on to bother, and too much money spent on Greyhounds chasing a man across the Midwest.” The pride in his voice falters somewhat at that, but he soldiers on, shifting closer to Dean as he continues, “And as much as the trip was a bust, as much as I learned about my… _origins_ , I have to say, I felt a lot better. Better than I have in a long time. I could actually think clearly. And I thought a lot about _you_ , Dean.”

Dean swallows thickly, and suddenly feels the stuffiness in the room increase exponentially.

“About me, huh?” he barely manages to get out.

“About how much I owe you,” Cas clarifies, “About how you’ve been there for me through every misstep I’ve taken over the years. I don’t think I could ever thank you for that. Without you, I would’ve-” Cas stops, and an almost sheepish look crosses his face. “It wouldn’t have ended like this,” he admits. “Thank you. For everything.”

And Dean fucking believes every single word of it.

And he starts fucking crying.

And then Cas fucking hugs him.

The first time he’s ever initiated a hug. Dean hugs back fiercely enough that Cas probably can’t breathe, but Dean can’t help himself. _Cas_ is _hugging_ him. Dean loves equations, and that’s one that shouldn’t add up, and yet here it is. Dean feels the scales shift, feels them balancing out. He’s probably going to get Cas’ shirt wet and gross, but he really doesn’t care about that at the moment. Cas can wear one of his shirts if he wants, because Dean isn’t planning on letting go anytime soon.

Cas has a hand in Dean’s hair and a hand wrapped around his back, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s never felt this relieved in his entire life. He practically melts into Cas, holding onto him for dear life. This isn’t the four year old Cas that Dean’s been clinging to, and it’s not the drugged up Cas that’s dominated the majority of the last couple of years. This is just Cas, honest and scuffle-haired and weirdly formal, and Dean couldn’t feel more at home.

“You’ve never hugged me first, you know,” Dean says quietly, voice muffled by Cas’ shirt.

Cas buries his face into Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m finally returning the favor,” Cas mumbles, and tightens his hold.

***

Cas keeps his word, and things are _so_ good.

School starts up again, and Cas starts off swinging, even joining the robotics club- which Dean is now captain of- just to round out his skillset. Instead of spending his breaks smoking up, Cas spends them with Dean, or he’s spending time with his friends from the book club, who he fell out with a long time ago.

Cas starts telling Dean about what he’d been up to the last couple of years, in small doses. Dean doesn’t want to hear it, but it seems therapeutic to Cas, so Dean lets it slide. He hears about the times Cas tried ecstasy, shrooms, acid, and a whole host of other things, oftentimes things Cas never knew the name of. Some of them were laced with other things, some weren’t. Cas claims that he doesn’t remember a lot of it, and Dean believes him. 

Cas also cuts ties with Meg, and Dean tries not to smile when he tells him the news. To Dean, Meg represents everything that brought Cas down, no matter what “character revelations” she may have awakened in him.

Dean and Cas even start studying together, which kind of blows Dean’s mind. It’s not that Cas needs help catching up in his classes, but the two of them have landed in the same history course first semester, meaning that they often take turns taking notes, and then photocopy them for the other. Other nights, Dean will do his advanced physics, and Cas will study his biology, and it will be comfortable silences between them for hours.

Mary often brings them dinner, and Cas tends to crash at Dean’s most nights. It’s a very informal arrangement, and Cas voices his concerns that he’s intruding more than once, but every Winchester always tells him to shut up and enjoy his spaghetti.

Cas eventually goes home to talk to Joan. Dean offers to go with him, but Cas politely declines. He’s not even gone long enough for Dean to finish the prep on the bread he’s baking. He comes back, eyes downcast, and it reminds Dean of the night Cas came back from his search for his dad. Cas says that he got a shoulder pat when he walked in the door, and then Joan had “other things to do”, leaving Cas standing in the entryway with a full duffel bag.

The duffel bag now sits in the corner of Dean’s room, the majority of the clothes already mixed in with Dean’s. Dean is a little bit taller, but they have similar builds, meaning the worst that can happen is Dean spends the day wearing an almost-crop top.

To cheer Cas up, Dean drags him out into the backyard at midnight, after all the lights in the house have been turned out. They walk for about ten minutes into the wheat field until Dean finds the empty patch he found years ago. He’s never shown it to anyone else before. He lays a blanket down on the grass, and pulls Cas down next to him. Cas is stiff and ungainly at first, protesting it as a fruitless activity. But Dean is relentless, and threatens violence if Cas doesn’t chill out in the next five seconds.

True to nature, Cas doesn’t chill out, so Dean does what he promised, and tackles Cas to the ground instead. They wrestle for a moment, and Dean emerges triumphant with an obnoxious victory yell, pinning Cas by straddling him. They’re both breathing hard, and the stars that Dean was so eager to show Cas are already reflected in his eyes, and Dean realizes he doesn’t even need to turn around if he wants to lose himself in the heavens.

“Thought you wanted to be a pilot, dude,” Dean teases, “You should be getting boners or some shit from looking at the sky.”

Cas rolls his eyes and shoves Dean off him.

“It’s a little bit different from this vantage point,” he says petulantly, and Dean can’t help but laugh as he collapses beside Cas.

They stare at the sky for a long time. Neither of them really knows their star formations, but Dean eventually manages to pick out the Big Dipper, and eagerly points it out to Cas.

“Look, Cas! Right there,” Dean closes one eye and points with his right hand, his left side practically lining up with Cas’. “I’m pointing right at the handle.”

Cas closes one eye and tries to follow Dean’s finger.

“I can’t see it.”

“Well, you gotta stop rolling your eyes and actually _look_ , Cas.” Dean informs him.

“I can’t see it, Dean.”

“Oh my god.” Dean shuffles closer, so he can get a better view of the angle Cas is looking at. He keeps one eye on the Dipper so that he doesn’t lose sight of it, and puts his head right next to Cas’. “Okay, give me your arm,” Dean grabs Cas’ right hand, and points his stiff index fingers in the direction of the formation. “Christ, Cas, are you made of concrete or something? Loosen up a bit.” He moves the hand a little bit, and once he’s satisfied with the sightline, he smiles wide. “Okay, see it now?”

Cas squints into the sky, and once he finally sees it, he can’t help but smile as well.

“Huh,” he says, “It’s pretty obvious once I can see it,”

Dean drops Cas’ hand and turns his head to look at him. Cas actually looks like he’s taken Dean’s advice, and seems much more relaxed, limbs loose and sprawled out on the blanket. Dean grins when Cas meets his gaze, and their faces are mere inches apart.

“Yeah, so, one for stars, zero for Cas, right?” Dean says cheekily, chuckling.

Cas levels a glare at him.

“We’ll see how those stars match up when I’m blasting through them in a 747,” Cas vows, deadpan as ever.

Dean turns his face into the blanket to muffle his laughter.

“Okay, Cas, whatever you say.”

They fall asleep next to each other on the worn plaid blanket.

***

Things don’t go back to the way they were, but Dean thinks he’s gotten over the idea of missing the Cas of years past. This new Cas that he’s getting to know, that he’s remembering and meeting at the same time, is a Cas that he loves to see. A happy Cas.

He finds that their dynamic has shifted, somewhat. Cas is a lot more open, a lot more honest about his emotions. It’s a lot more of a two way street than Dean ever remembers it being before, and for every time Cas pulls him into a hug, or initiates contact in any way, he feels like things are finally _right_.

Dean’s not an idiot. He’s aware, on a subliminal level, at least, what’s going on; what’s been going on for a lot longer than just the amount of time Cas has been sober. It doesn’t bother him, really. He doesn’t fight it. In fact, he welcomes it. Like most things with Cas, it just seems to happen naturally, and he waits to see where it takes them. He tries not to kid himself. They’ve been sleeping in the same bed on and off for a year, and are in each other’s personal space more often than not. It’s a level of comfort that only comes with knowing someone for as long as he’s known Cas, and he finds it both provides a level of security for him, but somehow also manages to make him blush like a total moron at the same time. He figures that’s the kind of relationship he wants to find himself in, and leaves it at that.

He loves Cas. That’s a fact he’s known for a very long time.

Being in love with Cas, while a fact he hasn’t known for _as_ long, is just as acceptable to him as the former. Whether it came hand in hand with being best friends, or it bloomed somewhere along the way, Dean doesn’t really know. When Cas twines his fingers with his own, or when they wake up in a tangle of limbs, Dean knows he really doesn’t care. All he knows is that they _are_ , and that’s good enough for him. More than good enough.

***

All the Halloweens that Cas didn’t spend trick or treating with Dean (aka every Halloween after grade seven), he spent either terrorizing the neighborhood with Meg and company (though he was often a more passive participant in those specific shenanigans) or loitering in a cemetery with the same group, high, drunk, or a little bit of both.

This Halloween, Sam is deemed old enough to go out without parental supervision, and Mary has her own Halloween plans to follow through on. Dean and Cas are left in charge of the candy, and Mary promises that if she comes home to find that Dean and Cas have eaten it all, there will be bloodshed. They swear, hands on hearts, that the majority of the candy will go to the little kiddies, and it seems to satisfy Mary, because she pats Dean on the cheek and ruffles Cas’ hair before she takes off for the night.

“Don’t wait up!” she calls over her shoulder as she’s walking down the driveway, and Dean and Cas share an amused glance before shutting the door.

Dean turns around to stare at the giant bowl of candy on the kitchen counter, and picks up an individually wrapped orange one.

“There’s like, a million pieces of candy in here,” he observes, unwrapping the one in his hand and popping it into his mouth. Obviously, it’s a chewy one, because his next sentence comes out garbled and almost impossible to understand. “I fink she ferggts hat weh ligh un a shreet wef lich two ouseh.”

“A million is an excellent estimate, Dean.” Cas notes dryly. Either he’s known Dean too long to tell him to repeat himself more clearly, or he’s known him long enough that he could actually understand what Dean just said.

Dean swallows the candy before he’s really had enough time to chew it, and coughs as it slides down his throat, the congealed caramel making his eyes water. Cas casually whacks him on the back a couple of times, and hands him a glass of water in silence. Dean toasts him before draining it, and coughing once more.

“Anyways,” he pants, “we basically live on Elm Street. I can’t see too many protective moms taking their precious cargo to the creepy farm houses at the end of the dirt lane.”

Cas looks like he’s holding back on an eye roll.

“If you just want to justify eating all the candy, Dean, go right ahead. But you need to know that I’ll sell you out if it comes down to it. Your mother is a frightening woman when she wants to be.”

“Oh, c’mon Cas. If you keep your mouth shut then I’ll do that thing they do in the movies. Y’know, when the girls in short skirts feed the king grapes and fan him with palm leaves or whatever?” he purses his lips in thought, “Okay, maybe minus the short skirt but you know what I mean.”

“But if I keep my mouth shut, how will you feed me?” Cas asks, dead pan, and Dean knows he’s just fucking with him now. He tosses a candy at Cas and it bounces off his forehead. Cas doesn’t even blink.

“You’re a dick.”

“And you just offered to feed me, so maybe you should reflect on that before you call me names.”

“Holy fuck, dude. Have you ever had a normal conversation in your life?”

“This isn’t a normal conversation?”

“Oh my god just tell me what movie you want to watch.”

Cas has used this trick for years. Dean caught on a long time ago, but somehow he still ends up falling for it every time. Cas usually just annoys him into submission, and then somehow he gets to pick the movie. It’s all very psychological, really.

“You’re a dick,” Dean says again, just for added finesse.

Cas says nothing and pops a caramel into his mouth.

He starts down the stairs to the basement and calls over his shoulder, in a tone Dean isn’t sure is joking or not, “I hope you’re in the mood for romantic comedies.”

Dean squawks indignantly in the kitchen.

“It’s _Halloween_ , you heathen!”

He grumbles all the way down the stairs, (though he makes sure not to forget the candy bowl) and by the time he’s reached the bottom, he’s come to the conclusion that watching romantic comedies is its own kind of horror.

When he sees Cas scrolling through the horror section of Netflix, he almost tears up with relief.

He puts the candy bowl on the table in front of the battered couch Cas is sitting on, and plops down next to him, both of them practically sharing the same cushion. It’s nothing new for them. Cas finds a movie that looks predictably awful, and starts it up. He sits perched on the edge of the cushion like he always does at the beginning of a new movie. Dean leans back and kicks his feet up on the table, almost knocking the candy bowl over in the process. Soon enough, Cas will be flopped across the entire couch, including Dean. Dean nudges Cas’ thigh with his knee.

“This movie looks awful,” he tells him.

“They all looked awful,” Cas answers without tearing his eyes off the screen.

Dean grins.

“Oh well. The night is still young.” He says in an ominous voice and does his best evil villain laughter, and Cas finally unsticks his eyes from the television to glare at him.

Dean chuckles and settles in. He grabs the thick blanket that’s always lying on the back of the couch and drapes it over himself and Cas, who’s still sitting straight as a board.

“Dude, can you lean back? You’re hogging the blanket sitting like that,” Dean complains.

“I never asked for the blanket in the first place,” Cas says, but he leans back and against Dean’s side anyways.

Things are a lot more comfortable after that. The movie passes in a swirl of colors (mostly red) and a lot of b rated screaming. It’s schlocky and awful and everything Dean thought it would be, but he can’t help loving it. He’s a cheeseball at heart.

Then a scene comes up where one of the remaining main characters feels the need to snort a line, even though they’re in the middle of being chased by a maniacal serial killer. Dean knows that _he_ tenses up, and doesn’t have the time to ascertain if Cas has done the same thing when Cas pauses the movie and looks at him disbelievingly.

“Is the movie too scary?” he asks, teasing obvious in his voice.

Dean tries to figure out if Cas is at ease as he seems, or if he’s covering it up. Dean had turned the lights off on his way downstairs, so the only light in the room is the dim glow from the television, and it’s hard to read Cas’ face like this.

Though, to be fair, Cas’ face is hard to read on most days.

“Does this make you uncomfortable?” Dean asks, flicking his eyes to the screen and back. “We can skip this part, if you want.”

Cas stares at the image on the tv, and then back at Dean, confusion apparent on his face.

“Why would this make me uncomfortable?” He asks. He looks at the screen again, and finally seems to make the connection. “Oh,” he says. Then, “I wasn’t _addicted_ , Dean. I was just having fun.”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to be confused.

“‘ _Having fun’_?” he repeats, trying not to sound too offended. If anything, it comes out too flat. Dulled by shock.

“You know what I mean,” Cas backpedals immediately.

Dean shakes his head.

“No, actually, I don’t think I do. All those times that you threw up in my toilet and passed out on my bathroom floor? Was that fun for you? Cause it sure as hell wasn’t fun for me. There were nights I thought you were going to die, Cas. And not die like-” he gestures in the direction of the screen- “movie die, but die die. For real. On my bathroom floor.”

“Dean,” Cas says quietly, “You know it wasn’t fun for me. You _know_.”

Dean sighs heavily, practically sags into Cas next to him.

“I know,” he says. He really does. He still vividly remembers the night Cas was so out of his head, yet so clear at the same time. He remembers Cas talking about his family, and while he can’t understand, not really, he also understands that Cas is his family, and he knows what it feels like to lose Cas. He thinks of all the times Cas walked out on him in the past couple of years, trying to keep the stab of hurt at bay by reminding himself that he’s sitting right next to Cas now. Yeah, maybe he can sympathize better with Cas now than he could all those months ago.

“Besides,” Cas says quietly, leaning his head back on the cushion and turning to look at Dean, smile lifting the corner of his mouth, “ _this_ is what’s fun for me.”

They’re sitting close enough together that their thighs are touching, and even though Dean can’t see it, he can feel the heat coursing up and down his spine, simmering and ready to boil over.

He thinks, _this is it_ , and he’s leaning towards Cas, and the space between them is closing, and their mouths are so close that Dean’s fairly sure even he doesn’t know what units they would measure the distance in-

\- and then the doorbell rings, and Dean jerks so badly that he really does kick the candy bowl over this time, and little multicolored treats go flying all over the carpet. He hears a loud chorus of “ _Trick or Treat_!” from behind the closed door.

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” Dean blurts out, throwing himself back into his spot, hands over his face.  He feels Cas get up off the couch, and when he finally calms down enough, he peeks through his fingers to see Cas methodically picking up the wrapped candies.

“How clean is this carpet?” Is all Cas asks, examining a pink one, as if he could see all the germs rubbing their grimy bits all over it if he looks closely enough.

Dean rolls his eyes.

“It’ll be fine, dude.” He hauls himself off the couch to help Cas put the last of the treats in the bowl, and leads him upstairs to answer the door.

He opens the door to find a witch, a cowboy, and a chubby astronaut. He dumps candy in their bags as fast as humanly possible without seeming like a total creep who lives in the lonely house at the end of the street.  

“Here you go, kiddies, happy Halloween, and don’t let Jason eat your face.”

There’s an assortment of “thanks you”s and Dean’s actually pretty sure the astronaut called him a rather unflattering name under his breath, but Dean doesn’t have time for it. He quickly scrawls a “take some” sign, tapes it to the bowl, and leaves it on the porch with the light on. He chastises himself for not thinking of the idea earlier, and is halfway down the stairs again when he realizes he’s empty handed.

He runs back upstairs, scoops about half the candy out of the bowl and makes a pouch out of his shirt to carry it back downstairs.

By the time he gets back downstairs, has dumped the candy out on the table, and wormed his way back into his seat again, he is so ready to watch dumb people get murdered by a serial killer.

“Okay, Cas. Hit it.”

***

Cas and Dean develop a friendly antagonism over academics. Cas is weirdly good in biology (“Dude, who the hell chooses to excel in _biology_?”) and Dean has been obsessed with physics since his grade nine teacher told him he had a knack for it. He’ll have to remember to thank Mr. Henrickson for that someday. They both have moments of brilliance in English, but half the time, they’re both stumped as a chopped down tree. Cas takes things too literally, and Dean often feels like dense prose builds walls around him that are only capable of being broken if you barrel right through them. Cas loves history, and Dean figures it comes with his interest in all things _life_. They both hate gym with a passion, Dean because he “doesn’t do shorts”, and Cas because he hates the atmosphere. Dean’s seen Cas in action; knows he could take out the whole class in dodgeball if he was so inclined. He’s even tried to bribe Cas to do it a couple of times, but Cas just gives him the stink eye until he backs off. Usually, though, they just duck out of gym to drive around in the Impala or to go grab burgers for an early lunch. (And then they proceed to come back to school and eat lunch again, and Jo gripes at them for not coming to spring her from whatever bird course she’s chosen for herself this semester.)

Dean didn’t use to see Cas in school a lot, because Cas wasn’t usually in school a lot. But now, minus the occasional rebellious cutting of gym class, Cas is in school every day. They fall into step, like so many other things after Cas’ failure to connect with his father.

It’s morbid, in a way. Cas will probably never speak to his father again. In another way, it’s closure. Now he knows.

They share only one class, but they’re together in between classes and during breaks and oftentimes lunch. Some days they’ll find Jo, or Charlie, or any other assortment of friends to join their table, but they also eat alone a lot. Cas can snake fries from Dean’s plate faster than even Jo, and that worries Dean a little. One lunch time, he got into an aggressive debate about _Lord of the Rings_ with Charlie, and the back and forth was so intense that by the time Dean finally glanced down at his plate again- famished, after all the energy he just expanded- every single one of his fries was gone. He immediately looked to his right, and Cas, the little shit, held the last one between his teeth and wiggled it at him. Dean was tempted to start a classic, pandemonium inducing foodfight by slinging his burger in Cas’ face, but he realized throwing his food would mean he wouldn’t get to eat it, which easily quelled that idea.

Cas, who isn’t a total shit, actually went and bought Dean a new plate of fries, earning him an “awwwwww” from the rest of the group.

“Don’t fucking enable him,” Dean had whined, as Cas sat down and proceeded to steal another one of his fries.

“ _Dude_ ,” Dean had complained.

Cas shrugged. “I bought them.”

So they obviously had the banter thing down.

The fact that they’re spending an incredible amount of time together again doesn’t escape the notice of some of the school’s less friendly faces, either. As much as they often pretend otherwise, Dean and Cas still go to a school in rural Kansas.

They face their fair share of slurs and threats, from the mundane to the pants-wetting. One day after robotics club, Dean and Cas are on the way to the Impala in the school lot when they run into some of the school’s star jackasses, Roy and Walt, with a couple flunkies to boot. Dean is uncomfortably reminded of the night with Azazel.

Roy’s pudgy face breaks into faux-surprise. He slaps Walt’s shoulder like he’s trying to get his attention, even though Walt is a lot less subtle than Roy, and already leering at them.

“Well, if it isn’t Dean’n’Cas! How you doin’, fellas?” Roy asks cheerily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hunting vest.  “Or should I ask, how’s the whole doin’ fellas thing working out for you?” His cronies chortle, and Roy’s smile is chillingly false. His eyes are cold and mean, and Dean has a feeling there’s a game of smear the queer in his very near future.

“Hello,” Cas grates out, and it’s such a typical Cas greeting that it makes Dean do a double take. Of course, Cas deals with everything in life in the same stoic matter, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise Dean that he’s going to be cool as a cucumber during this whole interaction, no matter how many bones get shattered.

Roy nods, playing the game.

“Hello,” he returns, holding out a meaty hand for Cas to shake. Cas, the dunderhead (or genius, Dean can never really tell) extends his own arm, and Dean doesn’t even get a word out before Roy yanks Cas right up to him, their faces inches apart. Cas is no sliver of a teenager, but next to Roy, he looks like a wisp of wind could blow him away.

“Dude,” Dean holds out placating hands, not taking his eyes off Cas, whose face is just as impassive as ever, “We’re just going home, man. Not looking for trouble.”

“No, Dean,” Cas says evenly, his voice dangerously calm, “We’re not looking for trouble.” Dean sees the tendons in Roy’s arm standing out, and he can almost hear the bones in Cas’ hand grind together where Roy is still clasping it. He cringes for Cas, because Cas apparently has nothing better to do.

“You see,” Cas continues, looking up at Roy, who smirks and puckers his lips in Cas’ direction, “I think Roy and his friends here are looking for trouble, actually.”

Roy puts a hand over his heart, mock offended.

“Why, Castiel, I would never make trouble for you and your cocksucker, here. Like, I’m sure you love it when he wraps his porn star lips around your-”

And Dean never gets to hear the end of that sentence, because he proceeds to watch the biggest ass kicking he’s pretty sure has every happened on the fact of the earth, including all Jackie Chan movies.

Cas is absolutely lethal. Even with a hand that Roy undoubtedly fucked up, Cas manages to bash his windpipe hard enough that Roy falls to his knees, clawing at his throat.  He grabs a fistful of hair on either side of Roy’s head, and brings his fat face down onto his upcoming knee, and Dean hears a crack that he’s pretty sure was Roy’s nose breaking.

Walt steps up to dance next, and Cas makes easy work of him. A quick one two to the jaw, and an elbow in the gut, and Walt is down for the count, wheezing on the concrete.  Cas stares at the two nameless cronies, who stare at him, look at each other, and then take off, practically tripping on themselves as they run.

Dean’s fairly certain he’s choked on his tongue, but he finally manages to squeak out, “Dude. You totally defended my honor.”

Cas stares at him, chest heaving, breathing hard. His eyes are wild, limbs twitching with adrenaline coursing through them. He barely spares the bleeding bodies on the ground a glance, and stalks off towards the Impala.

Dean, with a quick “cheers, gentlemen,” directed at Roy and Walt, follows Cas, and stops abruptly when he sees what’s been keyed into the side of his beloved Impala.

A crudely cut _fag_ now dents the driver’s side, her frame winking through the slashed paint in the dying sunlight.

Dean puts a hand over his eyes, distraught.

“Oh, they didn’t,” he mutters, running his fingers over the scratches. “They _didn’t_.”

He looks up at the sound of Cas walking back towards where Roy and Walt still lay incapacitated on the ground. Cas doesn’t even look at them as he searches both of their pockets dutifully. Eventually, he pulls out both their wallets, and grabs any cash that’s inside. Next, he finds a pair of keys on Roy, and dangles them in the open air for Dean to see, and tosses them to him.

“Your new car, until the Impala is fixed,” Cas tells him. “I’ll drive one back, you can take the other.” He tucks the money he grabbed out of their wallets, about a hundred bucks combined, into the front pocket of Dean’s plaid shirt, “For your pain and suffering,” Cas says. He finally looks back at Roy and Walt, “Don’t worry, Dean. They’ll foot the repair bill as well. Right, boys?”

No one says anything, except Dean, who utters a reverent, “holy shit.”

***

In the end, Dean leaves Roy his car, dropping the other boy’s keys onto his chest with a little chime. (“Just pay the bill and we’ll call it even.”)

Dean forces Cas into the passenger side of the Impala, and they peel out of the parking lot. Five minutes into the drive, once they’re on a dirt road that has the Impala trailing dust, Dean glances over to see Cas staring straight out the windshield, looking ridiculously unassuming for a guy who just pole-axed two kids twice his size. His mangled hand is resting in his lap, and Dean swallows hard because when he asked if Cas needed to go to the hospital, Cas had only glared at him until Dean started to drive home.

Dean clears his throat.

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?”

“Drugs.” Cas answers simply, and Dean practically feels his brows climb off his forehead.

“What?”

“It had been suggested to me that if I was going to participate in the world of narcotics, I should be able to defend myself. I took that suggestion seriously.”

Dean feels his eyes widen.

“Yeah, Cas, you really fucking did.”

***

Dean ushers a reluctant Cas into the bathroom, and practically forces him to sit on the lid of toilet.

“Cas, shut up and stop complaining. Your hand _at least_ needs to be bandaged. Just let me play nurse for two seconds, and then you can go back to being a badass, okay?”

Cas grumbles under his breath while Dean winds cloth carefully around his hand, holding Cas’ messed up hand in both of his.

“Does it… bother you, what people say about us?” Dean asks as he winds, staring hard at his handiwork. He feels like it probably bothers _him_ in an unconscious way, but for the most part, he just keeps on keeping on.

He hears Cas’ shrug more than he sees it.

“No.”

“Then why did you kick the crap out of Roy and Walt?”

“Because they deserved to get the crap kicked out of them.”

Dean snorts.

“Okay, point taken.” He finishes Cas’ bandage- it really doesn’t look like it’s going to do anything, but it makes Dean feel better, regardless. Some sort of placebo effect, he assumes. He stares at Cas, and it hits him again that Cas just _beat the ever loving shit out of two dudes_. “Man,” he marvels, “I’ve known you for more than ten years, give or take a couple sketchy ones, and I never thought you would be the kind of person to do that.”

Without permission, he again flashes back to the meet up with Azazel last year. He remembers the way Cas stepped between him and Azazel, and he realizes Cas probably would have beat them then as well. Probably would have _won_ , if it came down to it. Because he was protecting Dean.

And, whoa. What a revelation.

“You’re like, my guardian angel,” Dean tells Cas, stunned. Cas just looks incredulously back at him, and Dean barks laughter.

“Or a body guard, whatever. So long as you keep pulling me out the fire, yeah?”

“I’ve never pulled you out of a fire, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head fondly.

“Haven’t all those English classes taught you anything? Metaphors, dude.”

“Oh.”

***

The rest of Dean and Cas’ high school career is made up of a couple years where Dean doesn’t wake up every morning feeling like a giant weight is sitting on his chest. Sometimes, he actually wakes up with some _one_ next to him, and that’s a feeling that makes him surprisingly content.  There are bonfires and studying and stargazing, county fairs and petty disagreements, and hours upon hours spent at the good old rusty tractor, talking, or not. There’s even a time or two that they cautiously crack open a few beers, clanking the bottoms together in some sort of cheers of solidarity. A half-backwards congratulations for them ever making it this far in the first place. The beers go over alright, creating no more drama than a night of Dean clumsily trying to teach Cas to dance to old records in his room, both too tipsy to realize that they’d been dancing long after the record ran out, and all that could be heard were Dean’s soft chuckles and the scratch of the needle on vinyl.

They never really talk about _it_. The thing between them. But Cas doesn’t date anyone, and Dean doesn’t date anyone, and neither of them really feel the urge to. They just revolve around each other, lazily, like a mobile above a baby’s crib. It’s contentment, bone deep.

Cas basically moves in with the Winchesters. It’s not much of a difference, really, except that Dean clears out a couple drawers in his room so that Cas can finally empty his duffel bag. Cas feeds the chickens sometimes, and Dean will collect the eggs much better than he ever did at four years old. Cas helps Mary with the dishes after dinner, and often offers to cook, though no one really wants to eat anything Cas cooks, because as Dean puts it, he’s “eaten better meals in the cafeteria that the lunch ladies probably spit in”. Cas isn’t horribly offended, but does make sure to dump an entire jar of chili pepper into an unsuspecting Dean’s soup one night, and may or may not film the whole ordeal.

Though the next morning Cas burns toast, and that same afternoon, he somehow ends up messing up jell-o, so he has to concede Dean’s point. The only time he enters the kitchen for anything food related anymore is if it’s pre-packaged- or if Dean is baking.

The older Sam gets, the bigger his forehead gets, and the more often he geeks out with Cas over things Dean secretly (and theoretically) thinks are pretty interesting, but outwardly mocks, because he wouldn’t be doing his big-brotherly duties otherwise if he didn’t make Sam roll his eyes at least twelve times per day.

High school graduation comes and goes and prom comes and goes. Dean and Cas attend the former because it’s mandatory, and skip the latter entirely, instead choosing to marathon their list of favorite movies. Dean has to admit, though, seeing Cas in a cap and gown makes his heart swell ridiculously large with pride, and he practically strangles Cas to death in the hug he grips him in after the ceremony. There’s a photo of the two of them at the ceremony, now sitting on Dean’s desk, Dean grinning wide and warm with his arm slung carelessly around a Cas who glares at the tressle on his cap like he has a personal vendetta against it.

Dean, as much as he enjoys physics, isn’t entirely sure what he wants to do about it come September. He’s not sure if he’s cut out for another couple years in post-secondary education, though he doesn’t rule it out entirely. He finds out that he has a surprising knack for research during the months he tries to figure out just what the hell to do with the rest of his life.

Cas wants to be a pilot. The only problem is that he knows where he wants to end up, but not how he’s going to get there.

In the end, they stay exactly where they are. Mary figures a year off will do them good to sort out the details, and at the same time, she has another twelve months of not having to feed chickens every morning. She tells them that it’s as good a deal for them as it is for her, and Sam just claims he’s glad that he doesn’t have to start convincing Mary to play video games with him just yet. Dean can sense the relief from Sam, though, that him and Cas aren’t going anywhere quite yet.

They settle-

***

-For a while, anyway.

Dean and Cas take to driving around at night, especially during late fall of their gap year. Not in a menacing way, but in a way that means Zeppelin filtering softly through the Impala’s speakers while they talk about quiet things. A peaceful way.

It’s November second, and they find themselves, once again, in the parking lot of the local convenience store (that still closes at nine, because they’re too small-town to ever finish catching up to the rest of the country), and the Impala’s headlights shine into the abandoned lot out back. Dean’s not surprised to see people here, because everyone knows it’s a popular place for high schoolers to go when they’re looking for a hit.

What he is surprised to see, however, is the lights from the car highlighting his little brother’s glazed eyes as he takes what looks like _another_ hit off a joint that’s being passed around.

Dean sits in a completely stupefied silence for a moment, completely forgetting that Cas is next to him. And then, his emotions kick into high gear, and he’s crashing through the door, marching across the lot, barely registering the look of surprise on Sam’s face, and then protests, and then hurt, as he grips his brother’s upper arm hard enough to leave bruises. He doesn’t actually remember much, the anger and disappointment and shock (and _fear_ , so much fear) making him hazy.

What he does remember, however, is a sharp intake of breath from the girl next to Sam. Dean looks at her, ready to tell her to buzz off, when he realizes who she is and the words die on his tongue.

It’s Ruby.

Dean looks around, and realizes that Azazel and his cronies are here, too, mixed in with the rest of the stoners.

“Holy shit, is that Dean Winchester?” Ruby asks, and looks at Sam, eyes wide, “Your brother is Dean freakin’ Winchester?”

A grin spreads across Azazel’s face that makes Dean go cold.

“Wow, Dean, long time no see, huh?” he huffs a laugh, and Dean can hear the bitterness in it, “I still never got my money back for that little debacle a couple years ago, did you know? Your boyfriend never paid up.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, and Sam is looking around at everybody, obviously surprised that his brother knows these people. He ignores Azazel and Ruby completely, and just ushers Sam back to car as fast as possible. It’s too much to deal with right now.

“See you around, Dean!” Azazel calls after them cheerily, and Dean hears it as a promise.

By the time they get back to the car, Cas has already moved to the backseat, his eyes wide and wary. When Dean shoves Sam into the passenger seat, Cas watches him carefully. Once Dean has rounded the car and he’s gotten inside, Cas’ gaze flits to him, unreadable. Dean doesn’t say a word, but just guns it out of the parking lot.

They drive home in silence, Sam looking equal parts chagrined and upset. Once, he even opens his mouth to- apologize, argue, placate, Dean doesn’t know. He just says, “shut it,” and Sam clamps his mouth shut with a click. Cas is barely a presence in the back seat.

Dean’s thoughts are swirling, weightless and incoherent. Every time they settle into something more concrete, they become pointed and so incredibly _angry_ that it takes his breath away. So long ago he was worried about this. He remembers, as if from another lifetime, Sam asking what was wrong with Cas. And Dean, stupid, _stupid_ Dean, telling Sam enough of the story that he obviously filled in the gaps himself. It’s only logical Sam would assume that he would get off free, because _Cas_ did. Cas is a-okay now, perfectly smart and capable and perfect. _Of course_ he’d be fine, and _of course_ Dean would be fine watching someone else he loves travel this path. As if it wasn’t painful enough the first time.

They pull into the driveway, and the car collectively stews for a moment. Eventually, Sam, hesitant but firm, “It was just a joint, Dean.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles up Dean’s throat, but he chokes it back. Maybe to Sam, it’s _just_ a joint. But Dean’s been there. Dean is a primary source (not secondary, because he’s adamant that just by being with Cas through it all, he _knows_ ) when it comes to how much more something like that can be. What it can lead to. He’s aware that it’s not like that for everyone. He knows that some people can stop at one, that some people know their limits. But he also knows his brother, and he knows Cas. Cas, who never had any limits to begin with, and Sam, who pushes harder than anyone he’s ever met.

It wasn’t good for Cas, and it isn’t good for Sam. (It’s not much good for Dean, either, who feels that specially flavored fear claw its way back up his throat again after so long.)

“Go upstairs, Sam,” he says quietly, evenly. Trying not to lose it.

Sam slams the door just a little harder than usual, and Dean waits until his brother has been inside the house for a couple minutes before dropping his forehead to the steering wheel, hands entangling at the back of his neck.  He tries to calm himself down, counts his breaths, tells himself he’s overreacting.

But it doesn’t work, because over and over, Dean sees Cas, perpetually stoned, perpetually _lost_ , and it’s like an old wound opens that never really healed. Dean didn’t like to think it during that time, but he was angry at Cas for so long back then; angry about losing a friend, angry that he would decide to do this to himself, and angry that he felt so alone all the time.

And that same anger is back now, simmering, threating to boil over. Because no matter what Dean did the first time round, it wasn’t enough to stop it bleeding into Sam. Wasn’t enough to save Cas. Wasn’t enough to do anything.

 _Wasn’tenoughWasn’tenoughWasn’tenoughNotenoughNeverenough_ runs like a mantra through his mind until it’s seared on the backs of his eyelids, until its reared up, ugly and yawning and huge, and it threatens to swallow him whole.

Dean needs to get out. He scrabbles at the door handle, fights with it a second before he manages to expel himself into the cool night air. He’s gasping for breath, chest heaving, and feels tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He’s on all fours, panting.

As he tries to collect himself, he hears a door open and shut from what sounds like miles away. Footsteps tread up to him carefully, and he feels a hesitant hand flutter indecisively before coming to rest on his shoulder.

Cas.

The touch is like a jolt, and not a pleasant one. Dean jumps up like he’s been electrocuted, facing a stoic but resigned Cas. Dean sees Cas, but then he sees Sam, and the faces start blurring, and then it’s not the Cas Dean knows now, but the Cas who used to laugh hysterically when nothing was funny and throw rocks at his window in the middle of the night because he was too high to find his way back to his own house.

Then everything collapses on itself, and it’s back to reality, and Dean is staring at _his_ Cas, who’s moving towards him slowly, like one would approach a wounded animal.

“Dean,” he says, warily.

Dean holds out a hand, the other clenched in a fist at his side, knuckles white.

“Don’t.”

“Dean,” Cas tries again, and Dean can hear it in Cas’ voice. Cas knows exactly why he’s freaking out. Cas knows what it did to Dean the first time around, watching a family member lose themselves. He has to know that it would break Dean if he ever had to do it again.

Cas reaches out, and Dean has a moment to marvel at the fact that Cas _reaches out_ at all, and then one of Cas’ hand is on Dean’s bicep and the other is on the back of his neck, and his hands are hot where the air is cold, and then he’s pressing his lips to Dean’s, promises of comfort and security and support.

It all tastes like acid to Dean, and yet his lips feel practically frostbitten once he breaks off the kiss.

 He shoves Cas backwards, watches him stumble against the Impala.

“Don’t. _Don’t_.” Dean knows he sounds like a broken record, can’t help it. “Don’t you fucking dare, Cas.” Cas isn’t doing anything. He’s not fighting back, and Dean knows he could get his ass smited to Kingdom Come if Cas was willing. But Cas just stares at him, and something in his silence seems to be in agreement with Dean.

Somehow, it just makes Dean angrier.

“This is _your_ fault, Cas,” It almost sounds like a plea dropping from Dean’s lips, like he’s begging for it to be anyone else’s fault but his. Because he knows he fucked up with Cas. He knows it. But Sam is just shaggy haired and dopey and his baby brother and Dean fucking taught him how to bake muffins, for Christ’s sake. And the only connection he can see between Cas’ once glazed eyes and Sam’s tonight is his own failure. His own inability to stop two of the most important people in his life from taking paths that would only make their lives that much more difficult.

And he can’t look at two people he fucked up together in the same place. Not tonight, at least. Maybe not for a long time after. He has to go and see Sam, and he has to try and explain- _beg_ , really- his side of the story.

But Cas just stands there, staring at him with the same big blue eyes that Dean latched onto that first day in primary, fourteen years ago, and Dean is suddenly hit with the notion that tonight wasn’t the first time he and Cas have kissed.

Fourteen years ago, when they got “married” in the back nook of Mrs. Mosley’s classroom, away from prying eyes and secluded behind the open door, Jo their only witness, Dean pressed his lips against Cas’ for the briefest of moments. It was kid stuff, something that they all giggled about afterwards. Dean remembers having to convince Cas to let him kiss him. He remembers Cas’ hesitant consent, and he remembers how it was nothing to him, back then.

And tonight, Cas is the one kissing him, and nobody is giggling, and Dean doesn’t _know_. There’s not even a witness around to confirm it really happened, and for all Dean knows, it never did. All he knows is that he’s cold everywhere except where tears have burned their way down his cheeks, and he doesn’t remember when he started crying.

“You can’t just _do_ that, Cas,” he manages brokenly, swiping messily at his eyes. “You can’t just disappear for years and then come back and act like everything is okay, because it’s _not_. My brother looks at you, and he idolizes you. You talk about your favorite books and history and stuff, and of course he’s going to want to be like you. He’s going to look at a joint, or a pill, or a syringe, and think, ‘hey, Cas did it, so can I’. And then I’m going to have to sit back and watch him spiral, just like I had to watch you spiral, and I have no idea if he’ll ever be able to come out of it. He doesn’t have a dick of a dad to set him straight again. All he has is you and me and mom, and let’s face it, you don’t have a stone to stand on when it comes to that stuff, I’m useless, and mom’s oblivious. I just-” Dean swallows thickly, pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, “I just can’t,” he whispers. “Not again.”

Cas straightens up against the car, face acquiescent.

“Tell me what you want me to do, Dean,” is all he says, and Dean knows this is his way of apologizing for something Dean shouldn’t be making him apologize for. Dean knows his reaction is irrational… but it’s also not.  It’s a horrible, confusing mix of the two, and it’s making his head ache and his stomach churn.

“I just need you to go, Cas.” He says quietly. “Just go.”

And Cas goes, just like that. Dean watches him walk off into the night until he can’t see him anymore before the darkness swallows him up. It’s Cas walking away, because Dean told him to. A step up from Cas constantly leaving during the bad years, at least.

When Dean can’t even see Cas’ outline anymore, he feels his heart clench.

A step sideways, maybe.

When Cas doesn’t come back, Dean has to lower himself to sit on the ground because he’s not sure his legs can handle anymore shaking.

A step backwards, then.

***

He can’t talk to Sam tonight.  He doesn’t have it in him. Thankfully, the kid is asleep by the time he comes inside anyways.

He drags himself to his room, and collapses facedown on his bed. He’s asleep in seconds, his weariness coming at him from all sides, and he gratefully fades into grey.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait to post this, but then I realized I work the next week straight, meaning I won't have any time to post it, so what the hell. A double bill to finish it off. It's been a time.

He wakes to the heavy smell of smoke.

Before he has time to register what’s happening, he feels like someone’s socks have been shoved down his throat, and he can barely breathe, drawing in great, heaving gasps that just cut off his air flow even faster. His eyes can hardly open, and where they are open, great floods of tears accumulate, trying to clean out the debris that have collected there.

Some long buried instinct screams at him to roll off the bed, and he does, landing hard on his side. The world is marginally clearer down here, and he can breathe better, if not easily.

 _Fire_ , his brain tells him. _The house is on fire_.

From what he can tell, (and that isn’t much) there are no flames in his room. Just smoke. Thick, coiling, viscous smoke the color of storm clouds. There’s a roaring in his ears, and Dean never knew fire could be so _loud_. It surrounds him, engulfs him, until all he knows is the creaking of wooden support beams and what sound wallpaper makes when it melts off the wall. It feels like he’s in the middle of a great beast, a heaving, yowling, _alive_ thing that envelops him completely. This fire is a monster.

Dean needs to get out. He needs to _get out_ , or he will be eaten by the monster. Every instinct is screaming at him to _getoutgetoutrunrunfarawayasfastasyoucan_.

Except for one, and that’s the instinct that makes the final decisions in all aspects of Dean’s life- the one that links him to his kin.

Sam, mom, and Cas, the wildcard. Because Dean swears he saw Cas walk away last night. Swears he saw him disappear into the darkness.

And yet all Cas seems to do is walk _out_ of the dark. So maybe he came back.

Dean knows, in that moment, he has a decision to make. Go after Sam and mom, since he knows exactly where they are, or go in search of Cas, who may not even be in the house right now.

Dean is positive that no one else is in the room with him, so if Cas came back sometime in the night, he’s somewhere else in the house. He could be on the living room couch, or sleeping in the basement, or he could be passed out at the kitchen table. Dean’s seen each scenario play out at least once, so they’re all possibilities.

But Mary and Sam are just down the hall from him, and if he goes for them, he’s taking them out the back door, meaning he bypasses all areas where Cas might be.

No matter who he goes for first, Dean is coming back.

He feels the smoke pressing at his back, feels his skin slick and damp with sweat and heat. He rubs a hand in his eyes, trying to clear some of the grit away, but it feels like he just pushes it in deeper. He’s going to have to do this half blind.

He crawls army style, best as he can, towards the door. Smoke is rolling under the crack at the bottom and rising upwards to join the thick cloud above him. Dean presses his cheek to the now ashy carpet, and tries to suss out any sort of glow under the door that might indicate the fire is in the hallway, but the smoke coming in the room is too thick for him to make anything out for sure. He reaches up to check the doorknob, and finds it molten hot. He pulls his hand back with a hiss of pain, and sees the flesh on his palm has turned an angry, shiny red. He thrusts his unburned hand out to the side, and with a grateful moan, he finds a wayward sock that probably should have been thrown in the hamper days ago.

Mindful of the hand that is now pulsing with pain, Dean pushes himself into a crouch, and shoves the sock over his able hand. Without thinking about it too much, and half expecting to be blown away by an explosion of fire, Dean puts his socked hand on the doorknob, and yanks it open.

A large belch of smoke is expelled into the room, and Dean almost gets knocked flat on his ass, his eyes and mouth filling with ash. But he remains upright, and manages to get through his doorframe relatively unharmed. He emerges into the hall, and if he thought his room was bad, the hallway is bad times infinity. It’s a narrow space, and the smoke looks like a solid _wall_ in front of him. He’d have to get through it to get to Sam and Mary.

Once he realizes that they’d also have to get through that wall of smoke to get _out_ , the decision has been made for him. They’re closer. He _needs_ to get them to safety as soon as possible. He sends a quick, unconscious prayer upstairs that wherever Cas is, he’s safe, and then he plows into the smoke.

It’s _horrendous_. He’s in pea-soup fog that’s constantly trying to jam its way down his throat, and any other openings. He can’t see a damn thing, and can’t even open his eyes for fear of being blinded by wayward flames. His trek down the hallway is infuriatingly slow, but the smoke prohibits him from any sudden movements, lest he want to swallow pounds of hot, burning ash. He trails his fingers down the wall, trying to feel his way to Sam’s room, which is closer to his than Mary’s. Blessedly, finally, he hits wood.

Unfortunately, from the change in temperature from the wall to the door, Dean surmises there must be flames on the other side. Completely unhinged at the thought of Sam stuck in his room surrounded by the monster, Dean uses his shoulder as a battering ram to knock down the door.

“Sam!” He screams hoarsely, “ _Sammy_!” He can’t even hear himself over the din, let alone Sam hearing him on the other side. He hits the door once, twice, and in between the second and third hit, the door is pried open, and Dean, in the middle of his third charge, practically flies through the doorway, only stopped by his little brother, who looks just as bad as he expects he does.

But, divinely, he’s alive. Sam is alive. His eyes are wide, and more scared than Dean’s ever seen him, but Dean doesn’t have time to comfort him. He slams the door to Sam’s room, doing his best to contain the fire ( _whyisthefireintherewhyisitinthere_ ), and puts both his hands on Sam’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him.

Dean is practically yelling in Sam’s ear, and he still can barely hear himself.

“ _Can you get out_?” he asks Sam, who stares at Dean with so much fear etched onto his face it might be a permanent thing. And Dean knows that Sam knows Dean isn’t coming out yet. He needs to get Mary.

Sam shakes his head, his face sooty and streaked with tears. His bangs flop around his face, and Dean wants to scream at the sky because he doesn’t have time for this. Sam needs to get out, and Mary needs to get out, and god only knows where Cas is right now.

Dean can’t argue. He just grabs Sam’s hand as tight as he can, forgetting the pain in his own palm, and they push forward together, slowly, the fire screaming and clawing at them as they go by. Dean feels like he’s in an inferno, his grip on Sam’s hand sticky and sweaty, but unbreakable. Sweat and blood and dust are running down Dean’s face, and he tastes it in his mouth and blinks it out of his eyes. He keeps tightening his grip on Sam, and Sam does the same thing in return.

Dean hears the wood crackling, can hear the chunks of debris falling all around them. One slices him across the face, and when he reaches his fingers up to investigate the damage, they come away covered in red. He’s coughing hard enough to have to stop multiple times and double over, and every time he sucks in a breath trying to ease the fit, he inhales more ash, and the coughing starts again. He tries to tug Sam lower to the ground, but it doesn’t really help. There’s too much smoke and not enough hallway, and it’s filling up fast.

He tries to pick up the pace, and just when he knows they should be at Mary’s door, Dean feels wood against his fingertips. If he had any saliva left in his mouth, he would have cried out with relief. He presses the back of his hand to the door, and it’s the same kind of hot Dean felt when he was two years old and reached inside the stove and touched the side because he was wanted to know what it felt like. Dean figures he’s really going to have to break the door down this time, and doesn’t even think about what might be waiting for him on the other side. This is his mom, who he’s been making dinner with since he was four years old. There could be an active nuclear bomb on the other side of the door, and Dean still wouldn’t hesitate, would still charge into that room, even if there was less than zero chance that anything could be done.

But there’s a chance. There has to be.

Dean throws his shoulder into the door, feeling a kind of hysteria grip him. Sam is here and if it’s the last thing Dean does, he’ll make sure Sam gets out. But he doesn’t know about Mary and he sure as hell doesn’t know about Cas, and those thoughts just make him rush the door all the harder, make him urgent despite the smoke and fire tugging at his faculties relentlessly.

The door finally bursts open with Dean’s third hit, and a wave of hot air washes over him, making him cry out. He can already feel the blisters opening on his skin.

“Mom!” He hears Sam scream into the clamour, “ _Mom_!”   

Mary’s bed has been completely consumed by flames, and her curtains and furniture have gone up as well. This is the room that’s been hit the worst, and soon enough Dean hears himself screaming alongside Sam. There’s very little in the room that isn’t currently being eaten by the monster, and Dean makes his way into it, hoping against hope that Sam has the good sense to stay away.

He doesn’t, of course, and Dean feels Sam on his heels the entire way.

The smoke feels like a solid _thing_ in here, like Dean’s wading through a vat of syrup. His eyes are streaming again- he doesn’t think they ever stopped, he just forgot to notice- and his breathing is heavy and labored, and he knows that most people in fires die of smoke inhalation before anything else. The _urgency_ hits him again, like a load of bricks. The fire is not their only enemy at the moment, and he has to be vigilant. There could be falling objects, gas explosions, or any number of other obstacles.

But first, he has to find his mom.

He’s as low to the ground as he can get without crawling again, feeling around just in case she’s down here somewhere. Dean feels his way across the carpet, searching for a hand, a stomach, a strand of hair, anything to indicate that he’s here somewhere.

Dean is afraid of the fire, more afraid of it than he could ever really describe.

But he’s even more afraid of not finding Mary, because he knows he and Sam can’t stay in here forever. He has a responsibility to get Sam out as well, and as much as his chest clenches at the thought, he _knows_ Mary would want Dean to get Sam out instead of her, if it ever came down to it. She loves them so much, has given _so much_ for them, and she would give them this, too. As he searches, and keeps coming up with nothing, he knows that the tears streaming down his face aren’t just from the smoke anymore. Their time is running out in here.

“ _Mom_ ,” Dean is sobbing into the smoke, “ _Mommy_ ,”     

And then his hand brushes another set of very still fingers.

He scrambles towards them, breath catching in his chest fast enough to make him dizzier than he already is. He grasps the hand like he’s drowning and it’s keeping him afloat, holding it to his lips very briefly, before letting it go to get a closer look at Mary.

She’s not burnt, but she’s out cold. And so still, it makes Dean’s heart seize up in fear. It never occurred to him that even if they found her, it might be too late.

He freezes, both hands holding one of Mary’s. The fire thunders around them, oblivious and uncaring of their plight. He can’t do anything. He’s gotten this far, and she’s lying there, like a corpse.

He’s failed, again.

He kneels there, at Mary’s side, a moment suspended in time. If Sam hadn’t found him and screamed at him to move, Dean’s not sure he wouldn’t have just sat here in this ring of fire forever, holding his mother’s hand. The only question is whether the fire would have consumed him, or if it would burn everything down around them, leaving only him behind.

Sam is yanking on his arm, pleading and begging at him to _move, Dean, please, oh god_.

Hearing his brother’s voice brings him back to himself, sends another surge of adrenaline coursing through him that he uses to the largest advantage he can. He scoops Mary up, one hand under her knees and the other across her back. Sam grabs one of her hands, and then he’s in the lead, out of the room, (Dean manages to slam the door by hooking his foot around it) and back into the hallway.

He glances down at his mother’s face, her complexion pale and wan, and knows that he can’t think about that now. He already wasted enough time kneeling beside her. They need to get out, and then he needs to find Cas.

They make their way down the hallway more quickly this time, and Dean’s not sure if it’s the urgency of finding Mary unconscious, or the fact that they already have so much soot in their throats a little more doesn’t really matter anymore. All he knows is that they’re moving faster than before, and if the groaning house around them is anything to go by, that’s an extremely good thing.

They take the stairs slowly, however, Dean having to deal with the weight of an extra person. He’s so very careful, mindful that one wrong step could be the end of all of them. They take it slow, hacking and coughing the entire way. Finally, when Dean feels his feet hit the ground floor, he lets out a cry of joy.

Sam continues to lead the way, and they’re half running now, down the back hallway. Dean feels the heat at his back, fully realizing that he could be literally turning his back on Cas at this moment. All the places Cas could be are currently behind him, but Dean needs to gets Mary and Sam outside before he can go back in.  

He sends one last look over his shoulder at the leaping, dripping flames inside the house before Sam bursts through the back door, and Dean gets his first faceful of fresh air in what feels like years. They pound over the porch that groans even more, weakened from the fire, and then they’re at the farthest end of the backyard. Dean lays Mary on the ground as gently as he can, and pulls off his shirt to use as a makeshift pillow for her.

He lightly pats her on the cheek, but he can’t talk. He’s inhaled too much smoke and ash, and if he opens his mouth, he thinks fire might come out. Sam is doing the talking for him, anyways.

“Mom, c’mon mom, wake up, okay? You can do it mom, you’re fine, we’re fine, Dean’s right here, and he saved us, mom! He saved us and we’re all gonna be okay, okay?”

He continues with the pleas for Mary to wake up, and Dean spends equal times looking for any sign of life in his mother’s face, and back at the house that’s become one great ball of flame. Fire has broken through most of the windows, and Dean knows it’s feeding off the oxygen, only growing bigger now that it has hit fresh air.

Cas could be _in there_ , right now, and Dean’s sitting outside in the cool night air enjoying the fucking view.

He can’t do anything for Mary that Sam can’t. He needs to go back in.

“Sam,” Dean rasps, “You can do CPR?”

Sam, eyes wide, nods. Dean sends a silent thank you to whatever instinct drove Sam to take that course at the local community center earlier this summer. He also fully regrets each and every crack he made about Sam’s CPR practice dummy, Safety Stan.

“I need to go back in,” Dean informs him, and he’s not sure he’ll ever forget the look of horror that crosses his brother’s face at that statement. “You need to do CRP now, and I need to go find Cas,”

“No, Dean, are you insane?! You’re going to get yourself killed!”

But Dean’s already standing, already looking back to the house.

“CPR, Sam, now!” he demands, and then he’s running back into the inferno, Sam’s cries nothing compared to the storm in Dean’s head, a litany of _findcasfindcasfindcas_ scrolling through his mind like the ticker tape on a news feed.

The small, rational part of Dean’s brain informs him that if Cas actually is in the house, there’s no way Dean is getting him out alive. It’s been too long, and the fire is too all-encompassing. That same rational mind also tells Dean that if he goes back into the house, he’s not coming out either.

But it doesn’t matter. It really, _really_ doesn’t matter to Dean. Because he knows that if he just sat out there and let Cas burn, then he would already be dead anyways. He didn’t give up on Cas during the hard times, and he’s sure as hell not going to give up on Cas now. Not when they were finally okay again, after so long walking on tightropes and just barely hanging on. 

 When Dean remembers that the last thing he said to Cas was telling him to leave, to _go_ , he has to choke back a sob. If it really is the last thing Dean gets to say to Cas, he prays that Cas knows he was just mad. He has to know that Dean never ever wants him to leave again. He has to know that Dean loves him so much that it should actually worry Cas. He _has_ to know.

Dean’s in the back hallway again, and if possible, there’s more smoke than before. He’s shirtless now, and he knows that the thin layer of cotton wasn’t doing him much, but the heat against his bare skin is so great that Dean can’t help but cry out. It feels like the skin on his back is fissuring and cracking, rupturing.

He doesn’t have time for pain, though. He has to find Cas. He has to look. He has to try.

“ _Cas_!” he screams, even though it comes out as more of a pathetic gurgle. There’s no point in yelling. He doesn’t have it in him anymore. Nothing can be heard over the groaning of the house, anyways.

He’s not worrying about taking it slow anymore. He’s practically sprinting down the hallway, ignoring how he can’t breathe and can hardly see through all the grit. He’ll know when Cas is around. He’ll feel it.

He’s in the living room now, and from the size of the flames, he thinks this must be where the fire started. It’s been absolutely consumed by the fire, and Dean can already see what the blackened, hollowed out room is going to look like now. It’s a shell.

His lungs feel like they’ve been rutting against sandpaper for the last six months of his life, and his breath is starting to rattle around in his chest, but Dean doesn’t need breath right now. He needs Cas. He doesn’t notice the way his burned palm has started to bleed, doesn’t notice how he leaves smears of blood behind on whatever he touches. He finds himself running his hand along the wall, needing the support, and he leaves a trail of blood in his wake. Accidental bread crumbs.

Cas isn’t in the living room. Dean refuses to believe it, because if anyone was in the living room during the fire, they’d be long gone by now. Charred to a crisp.

He makes his way to the kitchen, chest heaving now. His legs are heavy and he’s fairly certain the last of the adrenaline has left him. He’s tired. He wants to lie down. But he soldiers on and shoves the pain aside, because Cas needs his help. Cas always needs his help, and Dean will always help him. Cas’ name keeps falling from his lips, unbidden.

Cas isn’t in the kitchen, either. Dean knows because he knocks into every chair around the table, knows that’s the only way he’ll be able to tell, because he can’t see or hear anything anymore. All he knows is that the monster is winning, beating its chest with its fists and bellowing out its victory call. He’s going to be consumed.

But he still needs to go downstairs. The front door is right in the kitchen, right next to the stairs to the basement. Dean could be free. He could live through this if he just opens that door and gets out _now_. It’s only the tiniest of chances that Cas would be in the basement, anyways. One in a million.

Dean shuffles by the door. Doesn’t even spare it a glance.

One step at a time, holding onto the railing for dear life, Dean makes it halfway down the stairs before his legs decide they’ve had enough, and he falls the rest of the way, landing hard at the bottom.

He’s in hell. This is hell, and Cas isn’t even here. There’s no fire down here, but smoke has been slowly gathering, and it’s more than enough to choke Dean, more than enough for him to know he’s not getting back up those stairs.

This is it.

But it doesn’t matter, because if Cas isn’t in any of these places, then that means Cas is _alive_. He’s outside somewhere, breathing fresh air, maybe dreaming about happy things.

Dean summons up all the energy he has left, and laughs. In relief. Because now at least he gets to die knowing Cas is okay. Sam will bring Mary up and out of unconsciousness. They will all be okay. They will all survive.

Dean thanks god if there is one, thanks his lucky stars and thanks the friggin’ deity of scientology, if they even have one. He thanks everyone he can think of, as he feels gray spots start blooming in his head, feels his own consciousness slipping.

The last thing he feels before he goes under is a bruising grip on his right shoulder, and he wonders if something fell on him.

***

He’s pretty sure he’s alive, because he feels like he’s been run over by a truck, and he thinks that if people can survive being run over by trucks, then maybe they can survive house fires.

He feels his eyelids flutter, and he cracks his eyes open.

It’s still dark out. He’s staring at the star-dotted sky, and it’s very pretty. He remembers the night he and Cas laid down next to each other out in the field and watched the sky, and he was the first to find the big dipper.

He almost kissed Cas that night. He almost kissed Cas a lot of nights.

As if he could hear him thinking about him, Cas’ worried face swims into view above Dean, and he feels such a swooping sensation, happiness that transcends happiness, that he can’t even say anything. He just grins like a fool up at Cas, his throat constricted with emotion. (And also ash, but mostly emotion.)

Cas doesn’t smile back. His blue eyes are so gaunt that he looks like he’s aged ten years since Dean last saw him.

“Dean,” he breathes out, and it sounds so painful, so thankful, so fucking _relieved_.

“Cas,” Dean answers, his voice rough and incredibly hoarse.

When Cas hears Dean say his name, there’s a sharp intake of breath, and then his forehead is on Dean’s, hands on either side of his face, and he’s murmuring words against Dean’s lips, so quiet that Dean has to struggle to hear them. He closes his eyes again.

He catches snippets of “ _scared me so much_ ,” and “ _never thought I’d see you again_ ,” and even once thought he heard something like, “ _loveyouloveyouloveyou_ ,” all jumbled together, and all said practically against his own lips, feeling every single word reverberate between their mouths.

Eventually, Cas just rests his forehead on Dean’s, and they’re quiet.

“Mom?” Dean says quietly, because he has to know.

Cas’ hands are stroking through his hair, soothing.

“She’s fine,” Cas murmurs, and Dean can taste the words on his lips. “Sam saved her. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. You’re fine.”

And it hits Dean, those words.

 _Everyone’s fine_.

Which means Cas is alive. Cas is right here. Dean’s eyes fly open, and Cas is so close they’re sharing breaths. He’s staring at Dean, eyes wide, still so scared. 

And Dean surges up and kisses Cas because Dean’s alive and Cas is alive and right there and every single thing he’s ever wanted since god knows when, and Cas kisses back like it’s his first time, eagerness and relief and pure, unadulterated happiness emanating from him like he’s a fucking beacon of light in a foggy bay and Dean is a ship lost in the midnight mists.

Once they break apart to breathe, Dean can’t help himself from reaching up to touch Cas’ cheek, thread a hand through his hair.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” Dean says quietly, “You were the one who pulled me out of the fire.”

Cas is quiet for a moment, face screwed up like he can’t bear to think about it.

“I thought you were dead,” he confesses, and Dean can see how much it hurts him to say it, “I dragged you up the stairs and out the front door and yelled until your mom and Sam came around this way to help me.” Dean is shocked to see that Cas’ eyes are swimming in tears. “Why did you go back into that house, Dean?”

Dean pulls Cas back down so he can kiss his soot stained forehead.

“For you. Obviously.”

Cas shakes his head, and the movement makes the tears fall free. Dean swipes them away with his thumb.

“I wasn’t even inside, Dean. You could have died for nothing.”

Dean manages a tiny huff of laughter.

“I thought you might have come back. You always come back, man. Eventually.”

Cas smiles, small and hesitant.

“I was on my way back,” he admits, “when I saw the flames. And then I ran, and your mom and Sam were already outside and I couldn’t see you anywhere, and god, Dean, I thought that was it. And then-” his voice catches, like a blip on one of Dean’s oft- played records, “Sam said that you went back inside looking for me, and- and-” He doesn’t actually finish the thought, just kisses Dean again, kisses him until they’re both gasping for breath.

When he pulls away this time, he’s almost smiling again.

“Do you want to see your mom and Sam now?” he asks, something sheepish creeping into his expression. “I may have exchanged some unkind words with them on who should be with you when you woke up.”

Dean can’t help laughing at that.

“Oh, god, I hope you didn’t decide to go all Jet Li on them if they gave you a hard time.”

Cas’ expression softens at that, and he even manages a chuckle.

“No, thankfully, it never came to that.” His eyes are fond, sparkling, even, and he starts to get up to go get Mary and Sam.

Dean wraps a hand around his wrist, holding him in place for a moment. Cas looks at him, eyebrows raised.

“Look, Cas,” he beings uncomfortably, “What I said before, man. I was so mad. Irrational. You know that I never want you to leave, right? I want you to stay. Always.”

Cas looks like he wants to say something else, but he’s interrupted by Sam coming up from behind him and punching him in the arm. He actually has a pretty good hit, and Cas even stumbles a bit.

“You _dick_ ,” Sam growls at Cas. Mary’s not far behind Sam’s train of thought. She whacks Cas on the back of the head. When they sees Dean half sitting up, their faces break out into twin expressions of joy.

Dean finds himself laughing again, both at the chagrin on Cas’ face, and the complete ridiculousness of the situation.

“Do you know what your boyfriend did?” Sam asks, scandalized, as he comes around on Dean’s other side and sits cross legged in the grass beside him. He goes on without prompting, incredibly offended. “We wanted to sit with you, but he called the firemen over and they put _blankets_ around us and made us drink _tea_! Right after we were in the middle of a blazing fire!”

Dean looks up at Cas, amusement coloring his expression.

“Oh no,” he says in mock-horror, looking between all three faces. “Are you saying Cas got you help when you obviously needed it? God, what a completely insensitive bastard.” He squeezes Cas’ wrist and winks up at him.

Then something Sam just said sinks in. _Firemen_. Dean hasn’t even bothered to look where he was, too busy with kissing Cas and Cas’ big head being in the way of all the hullabaloo. But now he actually looks, and he realizes he’s across the street from their house (which is still burning, but not nearly as badly) and there’s three fire trucks parked on the road, sirens flashing silently. Various medical professionals and people in yellow suits are running back and forth, and Dean watches in awe as a couple of men and one woman mind the fire hose, shooting great gushes of water into the blaze.

“Who called them?” Dean wonders aloud, knowing for sure that neither Mary nor Sam had access to a phone. Cas looks sheepish again, and Dean has his answer.

“I had my phone with me,” is all Cas says.

Mary, who’s sitting beside Sam now, looks up at Cas fondly.

“I think we have a lot to thank Cas for,” she says, smiling at him. With the hand that’s not resting on Dean’s knee, she reaches up and grabs Cas’ free one. At first, Cas looks surprised, but the surprise melts into contentment, and he smiles back at her.

Sam looks like he’s about to clap Dean on the shoulder when he stops in mid-air, eyes gone wide.

“Whoa,” he says, staring at Dean’s shoulder. “What’s that?”

It’s an awkward angle for Dean (who’s still shirtless), but he can just barely make out the shape of an extremely clear handprint on his shoulder.

Recalling the feeling of a hand gripping his shoulder back in the basement, Dean looks to Cas for an explanation.

Cas shrugs.

“You were covered in ash,” he explains, “but my hands were pretty sweaty, so I guess they cleared some of the grime off.”

Dean examines the handprint as best he can. He’s never been interested in tattoos before, but he suddenly feels the urge coming on.

He remembers that just before he blacked out in the basement, he thought he was in hell.

Cas pulled him out of hell.

***

Sam and Mary give him and Cas what they call some “alone time”, sharing amused grins with each other as Mary says it. As they walk away, Sam turns around and blows a kiss at them.

Dean flips him the bird.

Dean and Cas don’t say much. They just watch the firefighters try to put out the blaze in silence.

Finally, the fire is out.

It’s only then that Dean turns to Cas, gaze speculative, and says, “Cas, I think I want to do that.”

***

The official cause of the fire is unknown, chalked up to a gas leak.

Dean isn’t so sure. Azazel’s last words to him still make it hard for him to sleep at night. Sometimes he thinks that one day, maybe after fighting as many fires as he can, he can help catch people like Azazel before the fires start in the first place.

There are a lot of headaches in the following weeks. Insurance, reporters, nosy civilians; all of it dealt with by a flustered Mary, a flippant Dean, a perky Sam, and as ever, a stoic Cas.

In a surprising showing of good will, Joan opens her home to them. (Dean thinks, with a great deal of persuasion on Cas’ part.) It’s a crowded house, but Dean secretly thinks it’s good Cas is here. _Here_ may not be home to Cas anymore- not by a long shot, if the cool way he regards the rest of his family is anything to go by- but maybe someday they can learn to come back together.

Dean is optimistic. He’s seen it happen.

By now, all of Cas’ siblings have left home, but once they hear about the fire, they each drop in for a while to check up on things. (Minus Anna and Gabriel, who Cas figures are long gone, nameless and happy in a state far away from theirs). Michael and Cas probably have the awkwardest, most formal family reunion Dean’s ever seen, and he actually has to avert his eyes when Michael leans in to hug Cas. Balthazar at least was a lot more relaxed, though still a total dick.

Cas’ house, despite how it used to hold double the amount of the Winchester family, is a little bit smaller than Dean’s, meaning Dean and Cas have to share a bed. Neither of them complain about it.

Joan must pick up on Dean and Cas, on the casual touches and the easy was they have about each other, but she never says anything about it. Dean and Cas take it to mean she doesn’t _disapprove,_ at least _._

Dean finally tells Sam the whole story about Cas. Cas sits in, occasionally chiming in with a tidbit of his own. Dean tries to relax a little about the whole thing, tries to tell Sam that it’s okay to experiment, but he better have him on speed dial and pick up the phone if Dean ever calls him.

“If you ever, _ever_ need a ride, or someone to pick you up, or someone to bail you out, you call me, capiche?”

And Sam nods, soaking it all up like the good little brother he is. It eases the clench in Dean’s chest a little, because he thinks Sam really means it. Sam will call him when he needs him.

Christmas comes and goes without too much fanfare. Sam throws mistletoe at Dean and Cas, while Mary gets tipsy on eggnog and forces Joan and Sam to dance to Bing Crosby with her.

Dean actually built Cas a model airplane out of scraps from the robotics club, and claims that if Cas can’t fly that, there’s no way in hell he’s ever getting in a plane with him. After a few bumpy starts, and Cas almost taking out Sam’s eye in an emergency nosedive, he manages to get the hang of it, and it whizzes happily above everyone’s heads for the next half an hour. 

Cas buys Dean a pair of florescent suspenders, and Dean laughs hard enough that he doesn’t even hear a frustrated Cas trying to explain how it’s supposed to be the first piece of his future firefighter’s kit. Once Dean finally calms down, and they find themselves alone in Cas’ bedroom, he kisses Cas long and full, and thanks him for the suspenders.

Sheepishly, Cas reaches under the bed and pulls out a fireman’s hat to go with the suspenders, and that sets Dean off again, laughing until his stomach hurts. Cas eventually starts to chuckle, which then leads to a full blown belly laugh when Dean puts the hat on his head and grins the cheesiest grin he can muster up.

Suffice to say, the suspenders and hat will be put to good use long before Dean ever wears them into a burning house.

Time passes, and the seasons change. Before Dean knows it, it’s the end of next summer, and he and Cas are staring their futures almost dead in the face.

They’re at the tractor again, leaning against it and looking off into the wheat field, and Dean thinks it reminds him of all that symbolic crap that they tried to cram down his throat in high school. The tractor, where it didn’t even all start, really, but something that’s been a constant in their lives when so few things have. It’s an ending, but only so new things can begin.

“Y’know,” Dean says, rubbing his arms as he feels the autumn chill start to replace the summer warmth, “We could just go to Canada and forget about all this school shit. Drinking age is nineteen and I hear they party hard up there.”

Cas smiles gently and leans into Dean. He presses a kiss to the sleeve of Dean’s shirt, where he knows the tattoo rests that Dean got on his nineteenth birthday.

“The kind of lives we’ve led, Dean,” he turns his head to look at Dean, the sun catching and making his eyes as light and clear as tropical water, “I think we can handle university.”

Dean snorts, and then his face gentles.

“Man, sometimes I still can’t believe we made it this far, y’know?” he marvels quietly, “there were times when the last thing I ever expected was for _this_ -” he intertwines his fingers with Cas’ and holds their joined hands up between them. He stares at their hands with an awe he’s not sure will ever fade or dampen.

“It was always you,” Cas says honestly. “Always.”

He rummages around in his pocket for a moment, and pulls out a crumpled sheet of paper, obviously having been folded and refolded many times. He hands it to Dean wordlessly. Dean smooths it out on his thigh, and when he realizes what it is, he laughs and laughs.

It’s the “Cas Winchester” name tag they made all those years ago.

As touched as he is, Dean can’t help but rib Cas a little for it.

“You know that’s like the equivalent of writing, “Mr. Cas Winchester” in your notebook a hundred times, right?”

Cas lightly punches Dean in the arm, but his face remains soft and open. He looks sheepish as he continues, “Remember the first time you saw me kissing a guy, and I completely freaked out?” Dean nods, remembering the day in the empty classroom like it was yesterday, so he continues, “I thought you would figure it out, how much I loved you then. I liked guys, I liked you, I figured you would put two and two together.”

Dean chuckles at that.

“Man, back then, half the time I wasn’t even sure you wanted to be my friend, let alone anything else. You were pretty aloof, dude.”

Cas closes his eyes in something that looks like regret, and Dean squeezes his hand to bring him out of it.

“Hey. Long time ago.”

Cas nods slowly, and squeezes Dean’s hand in return.

“I still feel so terrible about it all,” he says quietly, “What I put myself through, what I put _you_ through. Dean, I-”

Rather than telling Cas to shut up, Dean just kisses him, and figures it does the job just as well.

They break apart and are silent for a few minutes, and then Dean huffs laughter as he realizes something.

“Wait. If you liked me back then, that means you had to watch me with all my girlfriends,” Dean’s face practically splits in two with how hard he’s grinning, and when he talks, it sounds like he’s holding back raucous laughter.

“Dude, you were totally jealous of all my girlfriends.”

“I really wasn’t.” Cas doesn’t roll his eyes, he’s getting better at not doing it as often, but Dean can hear the sentiment in his voice.

“You totally were.”

“Okay, Dean, you caught me. I was green eyed and frothing at the mouth every time you even so looked at a girl. ” The only problem in the fact that Cas doesn’t roll his eyes as often anymore is the fact that it makes it even harder to tell when he’s joking.

“Are you joking?”

“No.”

“Was that a joke?”

“No.”

“Was _that_ a joke?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a dick.”

“ _I’m_ your dick.”

“Now there’s an interesting philosophical question.”

Cas rolls his eyes again, and Dean shakes his head fondly.

“You know,” Dean confesses, “despite all the girlfriends, ever since I kissed you when we were in primary, I think I knew.”

Cas raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Really?” he asks skeptically.

“No,” Dean scoffs, “Jesus, I was four, you sicko. That would just be creepy.”

Third time’s the charm, and Cas is rolling his eyes again.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Dean nudges him with his shoulder.

“But I knew something,” Dean admits, completely serious this time. “I really did.”

Cas pushes himself off the tractor and sighs, but it’s not a weary one. It’s like he’s trying to take in as much of this place, _their_ place, as he can, trying to absorb it through his skin like some kind of osmosis. Dean watches fondly, how Cas’ chest fills with sweet summer air tinged with the promise of autumn, watches how he _feels_ it, so profoundly.

“It took everything to get me here,” Cas says quietly, and the way he says _everything_ is synonymous with _you_ in that moment.

“C’mere,” Dean reaches out and grabs Cas by the wrist, tugging him so that he’s flush against Dean’s chest. Dean kisses him, presses their mouths together in a slow, languid tangle.

When they break apart, Cas is looking at him like he’s never seen anything he wants to look at more.

“I love you,” he says, stating a fact. Just another axiom to add to Cas’ universe. A good one.

Dean doesn’t even have to think about it. “I love you,” slips off his tongue in return, easy as breathing.

As much as it hasn’t always been easy with Cas, at the same time, it _has_. Natural, effortless. Sort of like how Cas just _is_ a part of their family. Sort of like the red chicken coop behind Dean’s house that didn’t even get scorched in the fire. Sort of like how the sky is blue and filled with cotton ball clouds.

Sort of like how the wind whispers through the rolling wheat fields behind their house, murmuring assurances and promising solace.

Dean and Cas interlace their fingers again, and Dean is looking at Cas, and Cas is looking at Dean, and they’re surrounded by the old rusty, dependable tractor on one side, the Kansas blue sky on another, and the rolling wheat field on the third.

Dean looks down at the sweater he’s wearing and smiles when he realizes he hasn’t ripped this one yet. He’s going to take good care of it.

They’re moving forward, moving up, moving out.

They’re like the wind, natural and effortless, and the wheat is just over there, waiting for them.

So they roll.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is ridiculously self-indulgent, and also the last one. I obviously felt the need to squish basically every canon moment between dean and cas into seven thousand words, because I am a silly person who feels like it isn’t a dean/cas fic unless someone somewhere gets a handprint stuck on them (preferably on their butt, but the image of cas pulling dean out of the fire by his ass was a little ridiculous, even to me.)  
> Anyways, important note time.  
> Thank you. To anyone who has even so much as glanced at this story, to anyone who decided that this story deserved their time. To those who commented on multiple chapters, to those who read the first couple chapters and then forgot this story even existed.  
> Thank you so much.  
> This is actually the first long fic I’ve ever completed, and it was an absolute joy to write. The idea had been sitting in my head for a very long time, and once I finally started to write, I couldn’t stop. There was a certain atmosphere I was trying to convey, a nostalgia based on the Midwest (a place I’ve never been, and therefore can have no nostalgia for, funny enough), and I’m not sure if it came through in the story, but hey, we learn, we grow. But the idea of losing touch with a friend you swore you’d never lose touch with, yeah, that was also an important aspect. It’s something I’ve been through before, and I definitely drew from those experiences to help me write this. It was cathartic to write a happy ending to it, because even if estranging from a friend, whether it be mutually or not, isn’t always a bad thing, it’s almost always a painful thing.  
> I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been through that, either, and I hope anyone reading this, if you know what I’m talking about, I hope this gives you hope. As lame as that sounds, I really do. It’s not always about reconnecting, as this fic implies. Sometimes it’s just about moving on. Whichever method you choose, I wish you the best of luck.  
> Ugh. Wow, I apologize. I didn’t mean to get all after school special there, but hey, when in rome. This note is already way too long, so I’m just going to end it now with another big thank you to all of you who’ve read this, and if you have any questions/comments/concerns/blinding hatred, feel free to direct them to my tumblr [here](http://atomicwranglers.tumblr.com/), where it will definitely be easier to get a hold of me.  
> Cheers, guys.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Being Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/957617) by [liquorish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquorish/pseuds/liquorish)
  * [Que ruede el trigo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5946009) by [somewhat_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhat_angel/pseuds/somewhat_angel)




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